Law-abiding citizens
Commentary
Object:
The Old Testament law may not be an object of daily meditation for most of our people but it ought to be the subject of some consideration this Sunday.
Our Old Testament lection features the material we understand to be the centerpiece of that law: namely, the Ten Commandments. Meanwhile, the excerpt from Paul's letter to the Philippians makes what appears to be a disparaging reference to the law as the apostle talks about a new-and-improved kind of righteousness. The gospel lection, while making no explicit reference to the law, also suggests a negative association, inasmuch as the Pharisees -- the group of first-century Jews most closely associated with the keeping of the law -- are among the villains in the episode.
Some Christians earnestly take up a concern for God's law but that earnestness can often morph into a legalism that doesn't seem commensurate with the gospel. Other Christians, however, dismiss the Old Testament law altogether as though it reached its expiration date at some moment during Jesus' life or death. This view, however, does not seem consistent with the words of Jesus himself (e.g., Matthew 5:17-20; 13:52). The Exodus passage reminds us that the law comes from God himself. Yet Paul's remarks make us suspect that the law is somehow inferior -- perhaps even undesirable.
So it is that we will need to give some attention to the law this Sunday morning. And perhaps what we do will result in our people paying better attention to the law every other day as well.
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Years ago Gary Larson, creator of The Far Side cartoons, famously illustrated the conversations that people have with their pets. In one instance, the pet owner earnestly spoke volumes to the pet dog while the dog recognized nothing in the entire dialogue except its own name. In another instance, the pet owner tried to communicate many things to the family cat, who registered nothing at all of what was said.
We may face a similar sort of challenge when preaching the Ten Commandments, which is the assignment of our Old Testament lection. We may encounter a great disconnect between what we say and what our people hear, for there is a certain deafness that accompanies familiarity. With such famous material, people naturally think that they already know what it says, even though only a minority typically does.
If we asked at the beginning of the service, for example, to have folks list the Ten Commandments from memory, very few could do it. Furthermore, I expect we would find on those lists several extra contributions that aren't actually part of the original Ten (e.g., "do unto others as you would have others do unto you," or "love your neighbor as you love yourself"). Beyond that, we would probably also discover some loose paraphrases that may not fully reflect the meaning of the originals (e.g., "don't lie" or "don't swear").
The initial challenge, therefore, is to get the people to hear what they think they already know. And to that end, I would make two suggestions.
First, have them imagine that the text of Exodus 20 was somehow lost after verse 1. We would know, therefore, that God had spoken some special instructions from Sinai and we would later discover that those instructions became the centerpiece of their covenant with God: the featured contents of that most holy box known as the Ark of the Covenant. If we knew that God had spoken such instructions but did not have any record of them, how precious would they seem to us? How eager would we be to hear and to learn their wisdom?
Second, it would be fruitful to have folks consider their own version of the Ten Commandments. For example, if we knew that ten such basic instructions existed but we didn't know what they were, what would we guess? What would be the ten fundamentals that you would expect God to command? Would a reference to taking his name in vain appear on your list? Or keeping the sabbath? Or coveting?
Once we have considered how precious these words are and we have opened ourselves to how surprising they may be to us, then we will be better positioned to hear them anew -- even though they are so old.
Philippians 3:4b-14
While not as famous as "the faith chapter" or "the love chapter," this portion of Philippians 3 has also earned a nickname along the way. We call it "Paul's pedigree," for in these verses the apostle lays out for us his qualifications with regard to righteousness.
People who are familiar with the larger corpus of Paul's writings will be reminded of portions of 2 Corinthians. There, too, we hear the apostle do a certain sort of bragging in order to make a point. One senses that he is uncomfortable with the genre but he knows it is essential for certain audiences.
In this case, Paul's point is that there is a righteousness "that comes through faith in Christ." And in order to illustrate the superiority of that righteousness, Paul has to establish the credentials of his own human righteousness. For if he did not have a laudable righteousness of his own to tout, then his reliance on this other righteousness would not seem so dramatic. If the guy who sells all he has in order to buy the field with the buried treasure (Matthew 13:44) doesn't have that much in the first place, then the value of the treasure seems diminished by the poverty of his sacrifice. So Paul has to establish just how valuable his personal accomplishments were in order to make his dramatic concluding statement about them: "I regard them as rubbish."
The first claim Paul makes is a kind of "trump card" claim. That is to say, in order to persuade his audience of their need for the righteousness "that comes through faith in Christ," he has to begin by establishing that his "confidence in the flesh" was equal to or greater than theirs. And so begins his itemized pedigree. First, he establishes himself in terms of racial and ritual purity, then he rolls out his righteousness resume: a Pharisee, a persecutor of the church, and a meticulous observer of God's law.
None of these claims resonates favorably with us, of course. The term "Pharisee" has almost exclusively negative connotations for a contemporary church audience, though in Paul's day it was a badge of honor. The persecution of the church sounds more like a vice to confess than a virtue to boast. Still, we must concede Paul's point that it evidenced his zeal. Meanwhile, claiming to be "blameless" "under the law" sounds completely contrary to the "all have sinned and fall short" message we associate with Paul (Romans 3:23). On the other hand, we recognize the strain of such righteous claims from the Old Testament (e.g., Genesis 6:9; Job 1:1, 9:21; Psalm 18:23), as well as from Jesus' encounter with the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-21).
Having established his own righteousness quotient, however, Paul is then in a position to make a significant impression when he says that he regards it all "as loss" and "as rubbish." Not because these human achievements are worthless; but rather because of the "surpassing" worth that he had found in Christ. For there he found a new righteousness: one that is "through faith" and "from God."
Meanwhile, over against the checked-off accomplishments of his life "BC" (i.e., before Christ), Paul affirms that now he is in the midst of a process -- "straining forward to what lies ahead." He has not yet fully obtained or achieved all that is available for him in Christ but he continues to "press on toward the goal." And necessary to that pressing on, it seems, is "forgetting what lies behind," which includes his whole proud pedigree.
Matthew 21:33-46
Our passage begins with a portrait of a landowner and ends with a glimpse of the chief priests and Pharisees. That narrative juxtaposition presents us with a helpful and insightful contrast. Specifically, we see two very different kinds of hearts at work here.
On the one hand, Matthew reports that after the chief priests and Pharisees heard Jesus' parable and perceived its indicting message, "They wanted to arrest him but they feared the crowds."
The fact of the matter, of course, is that this parable was not the motivating factor in the leaders' conspiracy against Jesus. Way back in chapter 9, they had already accused him of being in cahoots with the demons (9:34) and just a few chapters later they were already plotting to kill him (12:14). The opposition to Jesus that we detect in their hearts here in chapter 21, therefore, qualifies as a pre-existing condition. The telling of this parable was not a trigger; it was just the latest offense by this Galilean who had been offending them for quite some time.
At the same time we observe the Pharisees' mounting opposition to Jesus. However, we also observe their impotence to do anything. We picture them stewing and murmuring, nudging and pointing, but too timid to take any action. In our present passage, Matthew attributes their inaction to fear. So they are failures twice over: first, rather than believing Jesus, they have opposed him; and, second, they are not even courageous in their opposition.
Meanwhile, see the landowner. He is the soul of magnanimity and in stark contrast to the Pharisees, he is entirely fearless.
In revealing fashion, this landowner makes perfect preparations only to turn his creation over to tenants. The property is all his but he is characteristically generous in entrusting it to others. In this regard, we see that his heart is quite different from the narrow, possessive, and begrudging style of the Pharisees.
We also observe the landowner's patience. While the Pharisees were hair-trigger in their condemnation of the slightest imagined offense, this landowner was the very soul of mercy. His tenants were not forthcoming with what they owed and so the landowner sent servants to remind and to collect. Rather than returning with the required payment, they returned with wounds and bruises. Yet in an almost unbelievable demonstration of patience, the landowner simply sends more servants. No threats, no penalties, no vengeance. And even after the unthinkable tenants have beaten and killed some of the servants, the patient and fearless landowner sends his own son to accomplish the mission.
Reading from this side of the cross and the empty tomb, the meaning of the parable is clear and even prior to that climactic weekend, the chief priests and Pharisees were able to perceive that the parable, along with Jesus' subsequent commentary, was about "them." The irony of their recognition, of course, is that they continued along exactly the path of the tenants in the parable -- killing the son and inviting the landowner's judgment.
We might preach this episode in a variety of ways, of course, for it is ripe with possibilities. Personally, I would preach it as a contrast of characters -- Pharisees and landowner -- in order to help reveal the beautiful heart, character, choices, and will of the latter.
Application
I remember being part of an icebreaker event in which one of the questions we were supposed to answer to one another was this: What would you do if it wasn't against the law?
The responses ranged from insightful to ridiculous. But the question might be a good place to begin this morning's sermon. I suspect that the exercise would reveal to most individuals that, in the most substantial matters of life, it is not the law that makes them live the way they do.
In my experience, most folks' answers to the hypothetical question involve relatively minor things. Some people, for example, will say that they would not pay taxes if it were not required by law. Others would welcome the freedom to drive at whatever speed they wanted. But chances are that there is no one in your congregation who would welcome the chance to murder, if only the law were not standing in the way. Likewise with stealing, assault and battery, and the destruction of property. It is not the law that keeps most of us from such behavior: It is something we carry within us.
Conversely, there may be some laws that good people break rather casually. Certain drivers will routinely break a variety of traffic laws as long as they are reasonably certain that no police officer is at hand to see them. Likewise with the infringement of copyrighted materials or the modest pilfering of office supplies from the workplace. The fact that certain behaviors are prohibited by law does not dissuade us.
All of which prompts us to ask this question: For those of us who consider ourselves law-abiding citizens, just whose law are we abiding by? Is it really the law of the land or is it simply our own law -- our individual judgment about what is important and what is not? Perhaps we can only consider ourselves law-abiding because our own personal standards just happen to overlap conveniently with most of the laws of the land in which we live but it is actually our own law by which we abide.
In our treatment of the Old Testament law above, we noted that the animating issue for us must be the priorities of God. Do I instinctively see the problem with working on the sabbath? Do I automatically perceive what is wrong with coveting? Perhaps not. But my compliance must not be based on my understanding or my validation. Otherwise, I will be abiding again only by my law but not really by his. Rather, my compliance is born out of submission and obedience -- two concepts that do not commend themselves to fallen humans with enlarged egos but two practices that are essential to discipleship.
"What about the new covenant?" someone asks. Aren't we out from under the law? Isn't that what Paul is saying about a righteousness that does not come from the law?
Happily, we are out from under the condemnation of the law. We are out from under a covenant that depends upon our compliance with that law. In its place, God has mercifully offered a covenant relationship that is based upon the merit of Christ rather than the merits of David, Pete, Sally, or Sue. So, by faith in Christ, we enjoy a righteousness that we have not earned and a relationship that we do not deserve.
But that relationship remains the issue. For the saving relationship, as noted above, is the context in which God gives his people the law. And so the relationship does not depend upon the law, but the law informs the relationship -- for both our experience of being lost and our experience of being saved should make us welcome the guidance of God's law. And our love for him should issue in obedience to all that he has commanded (see John 14:15).
Alternative Application
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20. "More Than We Can Chew." We gather that it took Moses several weeks on Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments in the first place. In the centuries since that epochal exchange, untold volumes have been written and taught by the people of God as they have earnestly tried to understand and apply those instructions to their lives. It seems a preposterous assignment, therefore, that you and I should cover them all in a single sermon or, for that matter, as just one part of a single sermon.
Because the size of that undertaking is so improbable as to be unwise, let us take a different approach. Rather than trying to do justice to all ten of these commandments on a single Sunday, let us take the big-picture view and at least place the commandments within a context that will aid our people in their understanding.
First, we observe that the central context for the commandments is the people's relationship with God, more specifically, his saving relationship with them. For we discover in verse 2 that the commandments themselves are prefaced with a reminder of who God is and what he has done for them. We, therefore, must never artificially or accidentally divorce the instructions from the relationship.
Second, we observe that God's laws have a different hierarchy than ours. Contrary to our contemporary culture, the guiding principle found here is not about human beings -- it's about God. We tend to be caught up in human freedom and individual rights with a concomitant concern for the abrogation of either. Now our liberty and welfare are surely the natural byproducts of God's wise precepts but they are not the animating force behind those laws. After all, we would hardly rank the observance of the sabbath above murder or the use of God's name above stealing. We probably wouldn't outlaw some of these things at all. Yet the Ten Commandments reflect God's priorities, not ours. It is precisely at that point that they become so instructive for us: for God's priorities are meant to become priorities for the people of God.
Finally, we observe at the end of the passage the trembling of the people. They were frightened by the spectacles that accompanied God's presentation of the commandments at Sinai and so they shrank back. They welcomed Moses as an intermediary but they were reticent about any direct contact with God. Yet Moses explained to them God's good purpose: "to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin."
"Fear" may seem an unenlightened -- and therefore unappealing -- motivation to our modern sensibilities. Yet we see plainly that God's real purpose was not that the people would be frightened, for Moses encourages them, saying, "Do not be afraid." No, the real purpose is that the people should steer clear of sin -- a divine goal that was in the people's own best interest. And that goal was more apt to be achieved by a reverent than by a casual people.
I suspect that what was true at the foot of Sinai is just as true in your sanctuary and mine.
Our Old Testament lection features the material we understand to be the centerpiece of that law: namely, the Ten Commandments. Meanwhile, the excerpt from Paul's letter to the Philippians makes what appears to be a disparaging reference to the law as the apostle talks about a new-and-improved kind of righteousness. The gospel lection, while making no explicit reference to the law, also suggests a negative association, inasmuch as the Pharisees -- the group of first-century Jews most closely associated with the keeping of the law -- are among the villains in the episode.
Some Christians earnestly take up a concern for God's law but that earnestness can often morph into a legalism that doesn't seem commensurate with the gospel. Other Christians, however, dismiss the Old Testament law altogether as though it reached its expiration date at some moment during Jesus' life or death. This view, however, does not seem consistent with the words of Jesus himself (e.g., Matthew 5:17-20; 13:52). The Exodus passage reminds us that the law comes from God himself. Yet Paul's remarks make us suspect that the law is somehow inferior -- perhaps even undesirable.
So it is that we will need to give some attention to the law this Sunday morning. And perhaps what we do will result in our people paying better attention to the law every other day as well.
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Years ago Gary Larson, creator of The Far Side cartoons, famously illustrated the conversations that people have with their pets. In one instance, the pet owner earnestly spoke volumes to the pet dog while the dog recognized nothing in the entire dialogue except its own name. In another instance, the pet owner tried to communicate many things to the family cat, who registered nothing at all of what was said.
We may face a similar sort of challenge when preaching the Ten Commandments, which is the assignment of our Old Testament lection. We may encounter a great disconnect between what we say and what our people hear, for there is a certain deafness that accompanies familiarity. With such famous material, people naturally think that they already know what it says, even though only a minority typically does.
If we asked at the beginning of the service, for example, to have folks list the Ten Commandments from memory, very few could do it. Furthermore, I expect we would find on those lists several extra contributions that aren't actually part of the original Ten (e.g., "do unto others as you would have others do unto you," or "love your neighbor as you love yourself"). Beyond that, we would probably also discover some loose paraphrases that may not fully reflect the meaning of the originals (e.g., "don't lie" or "don't swear").
The initial challenge, therefore, is to get the people to hear what they think they already know. And to that end, I would make two suggestions.
First, have them imagine that the text of Exodus 20 was somehow lost after verse 1. We would know, therefore, that God had spoken some special instructions from Sinai and we would later discover that those instructions became the centerpiece of their covenant with God: the featured contents of that most holy box known as the Ark of the Covenant. If we knew that God had spoken such instructions but did not have any record of them, how precious would they seem to us? How eager would we be to hear and to learn their wisdom?
Second, it would be fruitful to have folks consider their own version of the Ten Commandments. For example, if we knew that ten such basic instructions existed but we didn't know what they were, what would we guess? What would be the ten fundamentals that you would expect God to command? Would a reference to taking his name in vain appear on your list? Or keeping the sabbath? Or coveting?
Once we have considered how precious these words are and we have opened ourselves to how surprising they may be to us, then we will be better positioned to hear them anew -- even though they are so old.
Philippians 3:4b-14
While not as famous as "the faith chapter" or "the love chapter," this portion of Philippians 3 has also earned a nickname along the way. We call it "Paul's pedigree," for in these verses the apostle lays out for us his qualifications with regard to righteousness.
People who are familiar with the larger corpus of Paul's writings will be reminded of portions of 2 Corinthians. There, too, we hear the apostle do a certain sort of bragging in order to make a point. One senses that he is uncomfortable with the genre but he knows it is essential for certain audiences.
In this case, Paul's point is that there is a righteousness "that comes through faith in Christ." And in order to illustrate the superiority of that righteousness, Paul has to establish the credentials of his own human righteousness. For if he did not have a laudable righteousness of his own to tout, then his reliance on this other righteousness would not seem so dramatic. If the guy who sells all he has in order to buy the field with the buried treasure (Matthew 13:44) doesn't have that much in the first place, then the value of the treasure seems diminished by the poverty of his sacrifice. So Paul has to establish just how valuable his personal accomplishments were in order to make his dramatic concluding statement about them: "I regard them as rubbish."
The first claim Paul makes is a kind of "trump card" claim. That is to say, in order to persuade his audience of their need for the righteousness "that comes through faith in Christ," he has to begin by establishing that his "confidence in the flesh" was equal to or greater than theirs. And so begins his itemized pedigree. First, he establishes himself in terms of racial and ritual purity, then he rolls out his righteousness resume: a Pharisee, a persecutor of the church, and a meticulous observer of God's law.
None of these claims resonates favorably with us, of course. The term "Pharisee" has almost exclusively negative connotations for a contemporary church audience, though in Paul's day it was a badge of honor. The persecution of the church sounds more like a vice to confess than a virtue to boast. Still, we must concede Paul's point that it evidenced his zeal. Meanwhile, claiming to be "blameless" "under the law" sounds completely contrary to the "all have sinned and fall short" message we associate with Paul (Romans 3:23). On the other hand, we recognize the strain of such righteous claims from the Old Testament (e.g., Genesis 6:9; Job 1:1, 9:21; Psalm 18:23), as well as from Jesus' encounter with the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-21).
Having established his own righteousness quotient, however, Paul is then in a position to make a significant impression when he says that he regards it all "as loss" and "as rubbish." Not because these human achievements are worthless; but rather because of the "surpassing" worth that he had found in Christ. For there he found a new righteousness: one that is "through faith" and "from God."
Meanwhile, over against the checked-off accomplishments of his life "BC" (i.e., before Christ), Paul affirms that now he is in the midst of a process -- "straining forward to what lies ahead." He has not yet fully obtained or achieved all that is available for him in Christ but he continues to "press on toward the goal." And necessary to that pressing on, it seems, is "forgetting what lies behind," which includes his whole proud pedigree.
Matthew 21:33-46
Our passage begins with a portrait of a landowner and ends with a glimpse of the chief priests and Pharisees. That narrative juxtaposition presents us with a helpful and insightful contrast. Specifically, we see two very different kinds of hearts at work here.
On the one hand, Matthew reports that after the chief priests and Pharisees heard Jesus' parable and perceived its indicting message, "They wanted to arrest him but they feared the crowds."
The fact of the matter, of course, is that this parable was not the motivating factor in the leaders' conspiracy against Jesus. Way back in chapter 9, they had already accused him of being in cahoots with the demons (9:34) and just a few chapters later they were already plotting to kill him (12:14). The opposition to Jesus that we detect in their hearts here in chapter 21, therefore, qualifies as a pre-existing condition. The telling of this parable was not a trigger; it was just the latest offense by this Galilean who had been offending them for quite some time.
At the same time we observe the Pharisees' mounting opposition to Jesus. However, we also observe their impotence to do anything. We picture them stewing and murmuring, nudging and pointing, but too timid to take any action. In our present passage, Matthew attributes their inaction to fear. So they are failures twice over: first, rather than believing Jesus, they have opposed him; and, second, they are not even courageous in their opposition.
Meanwhile, see the landowner. He is the soul of magnanimity and in stark contrast to the Pharisees, he is entirely fearless.
In revealing fashion, this landowner makes perfect preparations only to turn his creation over to tenants. The property is all his but he is characteristically generous in entrusting it to others. In this regard, we see that his heart is quite different from the narrow, possessive, and begrudging style of the Pharisees.
We also observe the landowner's patience. While the Pharisees were hair-trigger in their condemnation of the slightest imagined offense, this landowner was the very soul of mercy. His tenants were not forthcoming with what they owed and so the landowner sent servants to remind and to collect. Rather than returning with the required payment, they returned with wounds and bruises. Yet in an almost unbelievable demonstration of patience, the landowner simply sends more servants. No threats, no penalties, no vengeance. And even after the unthinkable tenants have beaten and killed some of the servants, the patient and fearless landowner sends his own son to accomplish the mission.
Reading from this side of the cross and the empty tomb, the meaning of the parable is clear and even prior to that climactic weekend, the chief priests and Pharisees were able to perceive that the parable, along with Jesus' subsequent commentary, was about "them." The irony of their recognition, of course, is that they continued along exactly the path of the tenants in the parable -- killing the son and inviting the landowner's judgment.
We might preach this episode in a variety of ways, of course, for it is ripe with possibilities. Personally, I would preach it as a contrast of characters -- Pharisees and landowner -- in order to help reveal the beautiful heart, character, choices, and will of the latter.
Application
I remember being part of an icebreaker event in which one of the questions we were supposed to answer to one another was this: What would you do if it wasn't against the law?
The responses ranged from insightful to ridiculous. But the question might be a good place to begin this morning's sermon. I suspect that the exercise would reveal to most individuals that, in the most substantial matters of life, it is not the law that makes them live the way they do.
In my experience, most folks' answers to the hypothetical question involve relatively minor things. Some people, for example, will say that they would not pay taxes if it were not required by law. Others would welcome the freedom to drive at whatever speed they wanted. But chances are that there is no one in your congregation who would welcome the chance to murder, if only the law were not standing in the way. Likewise with stealing, assault and battery, and the destruction of property. It is not the law that keeps most of us from such behavior: It is something we carry within us.
Conversely, there may be some laws that good people break rather casually. Certain drivers will routinely break a variety of traffic laws as long as they are reasonably certain that no police officer is at hand to see them. Likewise with the infringement of copyrighted materials or the modest pilfering of office supplies from the workplace. The fact that certain behaviors are prohibited by law does not dissuade us.
All of which prompts us to ask this question: For those of us who consider ourselves law-abiding citizens, just whose law are we abiding by? Is it really the law of the land or is it simply our own law -- our individual judgment about what is important and what is not? Perhaps we can only consider ourselves law-abiding because our own personal standards just happen to overlap conveniently with most of the laws of the land in which we live but it is actually our own law by which we abide.
In our treatment of the Old Testament law above, we noted that the animating issue for us must be the priorities of God. Do I instinctively see the problem with working on the sabbath? Do I automatically perceive what is wrong with coveting? Perhaps not. But my compliance must not be based on my understanding or my validation. Otherwise, I will be abiding again only by my law but not really by his. Rather, my compliance is born out of submission and obedience -- two concepts that do not commend themselves to fallen humans with enlarged egos but two practices that are essential to discipleship.
"What about the new covenant?" someone asks. Aren't we out from under the law? Isn't that what Paul is saying about a righteousness that does not come from the law?
Happily, we are out from under the condemnation of the law. We are out from under a covenant that depends upon our compliance with that law. In its place, God has mercifully offered a covenant relationship that is based upon the merit of Christ rather than the merits of David, Pete, Sally, or Sue. So, by faith in Christ, we enjoy a righteousness that we have not earned and a relationship that we do not deserve.
But that relationship remains the issue. For the saving relationship, as noted above, is the context in which God gives his people the law. And so the relationship does not depend upon the law, but the law informs the relationship -- for both our experience of being lost and our experience of being saved should make us welcome the guidance of God's law. And our love for him should issue in obedience to all that he has commanded (see John 14:15).
Alternative Application
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20. "More Than We Can Chew." We gather that it took Moses several weeks on Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments in the first place. In the centuries since that epochal exchange, untold volumes have been written and taught by the people of God as they have earnestly tried to understand and apply those instructions to their lives. It seems a preposterous assignment, therefore, that you and I should cover them all in a single sermon or, for that matter, as just one part of a single sermon.
Because the size of that undertaking is so improbable as to be unwise, let us take a different approach. Rather than trying to do justice to all ten of these commandments on a single Sunday, let us take the big-picture view and at least place the commandments within a context that will aid our people in their understanding.
First, we observe that the central context for the commandments is the people's relationship with God, more specifically, his saving relationship with them. For we discover in verse 2 that the commandments themselves are prefaced with a reminder of who God is and what he has done for them. We, therefore, must never artificially or accidentally divorce the instructions from the relationship.
Second, we observe that God's laws have a different hierarchy than ours. Contrary to our contemporary culture, the guiding principle found here is not about human beings -- it's about God. We tend to be caught up in human freedom and individual rights with a concomitant concern for the abrogation of either. Now our liberty and welfare are surely the natural byproducts of God's wise precepts but they are not the animating force behind those laws. After all, we would hardly rank the observance of the sabbath above murder or the use of God's name above stealing. We probably wouldn't outlaw some of these things at all. Yet the Ten Commandments reflect God's priorities, not ours. It is precisely at that point that they become so instructive for us: for God's priorities are meant to become priorities for the people of God.
Finally, we observe at the end of the passage the trembling of the people. They were frightened by the spectacles that accompanied God's presentation of the commandments at Sinai and so they shrank back. They welcomed Moses as an intermediary but they were reticent about any direct contact with God. Yet Moses explained to them God's good purpose: "to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin."
"Fear" may seem an unenlightened -- and therefore unappealing -- motivation to our modern sensibilities. Yet we see plainly that God's real purpose was not that the people would be frightened, for Moses encourages them, saying, "Do not be afraid." No, the real purpose is that the people should steer clear of sin -- a divine goal that was in the people's own best interest. And that goal was more apt to be achieved by a reverent than by a casual people.
I suspect that what was true at the foot of Sinai is just as true in your sanctuary and mine.
