In those days:
God delivered all these commandments: “I, the LORD, am your God, 
    who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.
You shall not have other gods besides me. (Exodus 20:1)

We keep our covenant with God by keeping God’s law as outlined in our reading today from the Book of Exodus. “We should know that the ten commandments are fulfilled in the two precepts of the gospel: love of God and love of neighbor.” St. Caesarius of Arles says, “the Lord said in the gospel, ‘On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets.’

Moses proclaimed God’s law from the mountain to those on the desert road to the promised land after escaping Egypt. Jesus proclaimed that same law in his time. That law applies to us on the road today. The language may be old, but the message is not.

Years ago a man who had been away from church for years came to see me about returning.  I asked him why he was coming back. He told me that his daughter had asked him not long before why he wasn’t going to church, and he told her he was living a good life and didn’t need anything else.

She asked him what he believed, and he told her.

“That sounds like the ten commandments,” she said, “You’re missing the help you need to live that life you want.” 

“She was right,” he said. 

In Matthew’s gospel Jesus begins his ministry on the mountain, proclaiming the commandments as blessed teachings bringing happiness to us and to our world. Then he goes down to the people who “live in darkness and the shadow of death” to bring them life. A simple description of our church.