Mk 7:14-23
14[Jesus] summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. 15Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” [16]
17When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable. 18He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20“But what comes out of a person, that is what defiles. 21From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, 22adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. 23All these evils come from within and they defile.”
CLEAN, UNCLEAN: The Pharisees (Greek Pharisaioi, from Hebrew perusim, “separated ones”) are members of a party or movement within Judaism during what is known as the late Second Temple period (about 150 BC—70 AD). Biblical sources and the Jewish historian Josephus agree that the Pharisees are noted most for their exact observance of the Jewish religion, their accurate exposition of the Law, their handing down of extra-biblical customs and traditions, their moderate position on the interplay of fate and free will, and their belief in the coming resurrection and in angels.
The custom of washing hands before eating originally came from the biblical mandate that the priests had to wash their hands and feet prior to entering the Tabernacle (Ex 20:19; 40:13). In time many Jews voluntarily assumed the purity laws of the priests and regularly washed their hands before morning prayer. The Pharisees, who were laymen, surpassed the priests in their zeal by extending the priestly regulations to be obligatory to all Jews and to the ordinary acts of life like eating. For them, the people must be like priests and avoid ritual defilement.
In the Gospel, Jesus goes to the deeper issue of the source of defilement. A person is not defiled by what one eats. What defiles a person is what comes out of the “heart” which is the source of all spiritual and moral conduct.
Jesus does not abrogate the Mosaic laws of purification for the Jews. Rather he attacks the delusion that sinful men and women can attain true purity before God through scrupulous observance of cultic purity. Only repentance can cleanse the defilement of the heart.