Is it really all about rules?  In the Old Testament lesson, God declares that he will make a new covenant - a new set of rules.  If the people follow them, they will be fine - if they don't follow them - well, the lesson doesn't go into that.  Let us pray.
God, help us as we try to remember the rules in life.  With all the freedom you have promised, we still know there are things we should do, ways we should be.  But thanks to your son, Jesus, we know those "should's" are there for our own good, not yours.  Help us as we remember that.  Amen.  Now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our Redeemer. 
So what about the Ten Commandments and that New Covenant?  For so many of us, at least those of us who grew up going to the movies in the 50's, when we hear the words "The Ten Commandments" the first image that appears is of Charlton Heston as Moses coming down the mountain with two big stone tablets, with the Ten Commandments carved into them.  And everyone knows just how much people paid attention to them, once they were used to them.  The people went on with their bitterness, their fighting, their adultery and their general ignoring of those tablets of stone, on which they knew the hand of God had written a new way of life for them.  It sort of makes me wonder why people made such a big thing about not being able to have the Ten Commandments posted in classrooms - did they really think the kids were getting much out of it? 
It doesn't seem the Hebrews got much out of the Ten Commandments, even when they were carrying them around the desert in a chest, keeping them in a special tent.  The rabbis - well, they didn't have rabbis then, but the priests tried to teach the people - it didn't take too well. 
One of the things we talk about in our church, especially at the time of baptism, is the responsibility of the parents to teach their children of the faith.  We tell the parents "You should teach them the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments."  Those aren't my words, they are from the baptismal service in the hymnal of the Lutheran Church.
The Ten Commandments have always been a part of the life of the Christian church as much as they were of the Jewish faith.  And in the Christian church they have been ignored just as much as anywhere else.  Sometimes they have been a great part of the liturgy.  In the 1928 Prayer Book of the Anglican church, the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, were recited by the whole congregation once a month at the service of Holy Communion.
Of course, their Prayer Book doesn't have that in there now - like the tablets of the Law, that part of the service was put away in the attic.  The Pastor who told me about this said - his words - "That requirement was a source of embarrassment to the people who wrote the new liturgies, and even hearing about it having been there in the past is an embarrassment to modern-day worshippers.  We hadn't kept the rules anyway, and some of us blushed to say them out loud in of all places the church, in front of our children and our serial spouses."
And we wonder sometimes, if we have failed - but let's go back to that Old Testament lesson again. 

"I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." 

How do you do that - write something in someone's heart?
Another friend - with a 10-year old son - told about the problems they were having with their son and school.  He seemed to be doing things, but he was "going through a phase" of not handing in his homework.  Have any of you ever had that problem?  Well, my friend told me of all the ways they tried:
They reminded him as they left him at the school gate (didn't work!)
They stuck post-it notes on his school bag (didn't work)
They wrote it in pen on the back of his hand (didn't work)
They tattooed it across his face (OK - that one they didn't do, but they seriously considered it.)
Finally they set up a point scheme - for every day he hands in his homework on time, he gets a point - when he reaches a certain amount of points, he can get a reward, or he can save them up for a larger reward.  It seems to be working - my friend told me that they had put the rule into him - we might say they had written it on his heart.  He doesn't need the rewards to remind him anymore - of course, he is glad to still get them.
Is that what it takes?  Will we only learn when there is a visible reward there for having learned, and maybe a greater reward for having actually used that knowledge?  Do we have to be bribed to be good, to do right?  God tried ways with the Israelites:
God reminded them when they left the garden - it didn't work.
God tried writing his stuff on the tablets (post-it notes) - but it didn't work
God tried reminding them at the school gate through the prophets - but it didn't work

God needed to find a way of writing it in their minds and on their hearts…

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