Question: Why does denial of our appetites play such a large role in every faith?

Answer: In Christianity, I would argue that it doesn't. Denial of appetites certainly figures in the practice of the faith, but never as an end in itself, only as a "tool" to achieve certain spiritual goals.

The reader familiar with the New Testament may recall that Jesus was chastised for being a "wine bibber and a glutton." In the Gospel according to St. John, Jesus' first "sign," his "coming out," is the conversion of water into wine at a wedding feast, ensuring that a festive occasion lasting two weeks in the first century in Judea might continue, the festivities unabated. His vintage was even named the best in show!

Jesus' favourite analogy for the Kingdom of Heaven was that of a grand banquet.

Of the two sacraments celebrated in the majority of Protestant churches, Baptism and Eucharist -- or the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion -- the latter is meant to memorialize Jesus through the sharing of bread and wine. The portions are modest, granted, but they betoken the great feast of the Kingdom in which Jesus is the host and abundance the hallmark.

Jesus blesses wine, children, the marriage bed and all things physical. He provides a feast from the meagre but heartfelt offering of a child of rolls and fish. He comes, he says, "that we might have life, and have it more abundantly."

But there are times when the denial of one pleasure or another is an element in the life of the disciple. The rhythm of the Christian year includes feasts and fasts, sometimes to aid in concentrating on things eternal, sometimes as an act of solidarity with those who have little or nothing.

Christianity counsels spiritual discipline and temperance, not abstinence.

The God of Israel brings forth grain from the earth and fruit from the vine. Hallelujah!

Rev. James Christie is a minister of the United Church of Canada whose home is in Old Ottawa South. He is dean of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Winnipeg and president of the Canadian Council of Churches.