Article Added On: May 11, 2008 - 3 months ago
Title: Ask the Religion Experts
Original URL: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/religion/story.html?id=482012eb-40a8-4b18-a171-728229aacbbe
Author: James Christie
Publication: The Ottawa Citizen
Publication Date: May 10, 2008 - 3 months ago
Faith Groups: Other
Themes: religion in the media
Abstract: Ask the Religion Experts is compiled by Linda Denley.
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.
