In Genesis 29, we meet a very different Jacob than the one we're used to seeing at his father's tent. The one who's sitting today at his uncle's tent. Laban is a very different man, not fully transformed, but semi transformed. Something happened to him in his journey between going from his father's tent after receiving Isaac's blessing to arriving at his uncle's tent. He has a dream. And in that dream he has a vision of God Himself. And the Lord blesses him, and he gives him the promise that he gave to his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac. So when he enters Laban's tent, Jacob is changed by the power of God's grace. Jacob is not the deceiver that we're used to hearing about. Jacob is now a good man, a man who's in love, in love with this woman that he met at a well and found out that she's his cousin. He stays for a month at his uncle's home, and then he decides to propose. And the uncle agrees. And his proposal and the dowry that he pays is a lot more than one would expect at that time. It's possible because he was so in love, and he just wanted to make sure that he got a yes from his father-in-law. But it's also possible that he had heard about his uncle's greed, that he was a man that always wanted more, not simply more possessions, more wealth, just more. More of everything. More of anything.

Laban is driven by a hunger that is never satisfied: hunger for wealth, a hunger for security, a hunger for recognition, for appreciation, for power, for being in control. And he was going to satisfy that hunger no matter what it cost, even if it costs his own daughter's happiness. That was Laban. That's probably why we don't hear a lot of sermons about Laban. Because Laban exposes the human heart. Laban exposes us.

Laban is a statement on our world's affairs, one that is centered around its own hunger for more. One that is never satisfied with enough. Laban sees people around him not as ends in themselves, but as means to what he wants, to what he wants to accumulate, to how he wants to satisfy his own hunger. And yes, those people could be as close to him as his own daughters. The problem is, in that circle of greed, everybody loses. Leah lost. Rachel lost. Jacob lost. The people who attended the great feast of the wedding night lost when they saw the deception of a father to his daughter, of a father to his son-in-law, his nephew, and sadly, even Laban himself lost. The greedy man loses too. Even though he thinks he's going to win. He lost his daughter's happiness and a reconciled life together. They lived as enemies for as long as they lived, and the daughter that he thought he was going to protect by providing a husband for her, she lived miserably knowing that she was hated by her own husband. He lost Jacob's trust. He was a reason for others to stumble, who watched how he dealt with his own hunger, how he manipulated people and situations, how he took advantage of the ones that are closest to him.

Laban himself, who once had a full house with his sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters, at the end, ended up being all by himself at his dining table. Without his daughters, without his grandkids, without the son-in-law that was the reason for the blessing that he had received. He himself confessed that and admitted it: "I know that the Lord had blessed me because of you." Everybody loses in the circle of greed.

Laban exposes our hearts, because in our own circles, in our families till this day, Laban's heart lives on in our hearts. We too take advantage of people. We too manipulate others. We too prefer our own advantage to other people's good. When we hear the word inheritance shared between siblings, we don't hear a word of blessing as God had intended it to be from one generation to the next. We hear scandals about broken relationships between siblings, between parents and children. In our workplace we see examples of employees being exploited, of workers being overlooked, of employers asking, "What can I get?" instead of asking, "How can I help my employees thrive and flourish?" We value productivity over people. In our university campuses we see students fighting for grades, how to be first, even if integrity is compromised, because my grades give me value, appreciation, recognition. My grades satisfy that hunger that is never satisfied.

We see it in our relationships when we insist to always be right. When we turn every conversation into a conversation about us, our pain, our needs, our goals, our dreams, we magnify our needs above others' needs. We expect loyalty from others, even though we hesitate to offer it to them. In our church how often do our leaders and lay leaders burn out because programs take priority over people, because our ministry has to have the better reports? Even in our world, we have enough research and evidence to prove that our earth as God has created it, even with all the damage that we've done to it, our earth is capable of producing enough food for all people to eat. And yet we still hear of famine. It's not for lack of resources, and it's not for lack of technology to transport such resources around the planet. But it's our greedy hearts that want to hoard all of these resources just for us, even when we have plenty. And how ironic it is that the nations that are most wealthy tend to show the most greed. It's because they're centered around that hunger deep within them, and that's what drives the need for more. It's just not enough. We need more wealth, more recognition, more power, more security, more appreciation. And so we accumulate money, popularity, educational credentials, ministries. I'm sad to say that sometimes we even accumulate wars just to prove that we are in control of this planet.

The problem with greed is that it's so deceiving. The mask is hard to remove. So Laban hides his greed behind — well, it's our tradition that the oldest gets married first. As if he didn't know that tradition seven years before, when Jacob asked for Rachel. And sometimes it wears the mask of looking after the other: "I'm just looking after my older daughter. Who else is going to marry her with this handicap?" And sometimes it looks like niceness: "Looking after my nephew." Greed can be very deceiving and can hide behind tradition and the pretense of looking after other people, when all the while we're just looking after ourselves. The irony of this is that the very people that get up in front of cameras and they want to end wars are the same ones that are buying stocks in the war weapon machinery. Greed can be very deceiving. That's why Laban makes us uncomfortable, because his story exposes the human heart, our hearts, and the state of our world today.

And yet, that's not even the worst that we get from Laban's story. When I look at who Laban lived with for 20 years, Jacob, the evidence of God's transforming power of grace. Jacob the witness to a sacrificial love to Rachel. And I wonder, how could you have missed the opportunity to be changed by this, Laban? How could you have lived for 20 years in the shadow of grace without once daring to step into its light, its transformative light? And I wonder about our own lives. How often do we live in the shadow of grace? How often do we remain unchanged, even as our tongues memorize songs about grace, about love, about the cross, about our God? And yet we don't dare to step into the light. We stay in the shadows, and we remain unchanged.

That is not the way or the life that God had intended for us. That is not the life that God had revealed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob on his way to Laban's tent. When God blessed Jacob, he blessed him as a man that is there to receive and count his blessings, not as a man who's going to grasp and count his possessions. God said, your job is to fear me, to walk in my ways, and I will bless you, and I will make you prosper. What God promised Jacob, it's the image we get in Psalm 128. It's the image of a man who walks in God's ways, who fears God and is blessed in turn by God. It's the image that Laban could never perceive, could never be inspired by.

Psalm 128 describes this man by saying, blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways. You will eat the fruit of your labor, your labor, Jacob. But Laban wanted to eat the fruit of Jacob's labor. Blessings and prosperity will be yours. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your sons will be like olive shoots around your table. Thus is the man blessed who fears the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion all the days of your life. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem, and may you live to see your children's children. Peace be upon Israel. And we know that Israel was the new name that God gave to Jacob after he blessed him.

If Laban missed all the opportunities to be inspired and transformed by the model of Jacob living in his life for 20 years, then we have no excuse to not be inspired and changed by the model that Jesus Himself lived among us. For 2000 years we've been hearing the story of how this God-man lived. How he always put the interests of others before his own interests. How his grace transformed all the lives that touched him, and how his sacrificial love reached its climates for his bride. Not in labor of 14 years, but in a labor that none of us could perform in lifting a curse that we were all under, that we could never lift off ourselves.

Psalm 128 is about a man, a God who became man, who was blessed by his father because he walked in his ways, because he feared the Lord. Listen to the Psalm again, and this time think about Christ, not Jacob. Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways. You will eat the fruit of your labor. Blessings and prosperity will be yours. Your wife, your bride, your church will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your sons and daughters of faith will be like olive shoots around your table. Thus is the man blessed who fears the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion all the days of your life. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem, and may you live to see your children's children. Peace be upon Israel. And we know that Israel is also the name given to Christ.

Christ, who is the true vine. Unlike the old vine of the Old Testament, the old people of God, who could never produce fruit that would last. Jesus is the true vine, and we are the branches. And we are all invited to a full table with all of his sons and daughters in the faith, because we have been transformed by the power of grace, because we have been inspired by his sacrificial love to his bride, to us. The story of Laban makes us uncomfortable because it exposes our lives in the shadow of grace. But the story of Christ makes us inspired and confident to step out of that life in the shadows of grace, straight into the light of grace, so that we can be transformed from our greed to our love, our grace, our satisfaction in Christ.

And it was Jesus Himself who said, you want to deal with the hunger inside of you that is never satisfied? Listen: I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never go thirsty.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.