Mk 7:14-23
Moral conversion: In the kingdom of God, Mark says, ritual washings are not important. In order to be sure that the reader gets the point, the author himself enters into the text parenthetically when he writes, “Thus he [Jesus] declared all foods clean” (v 19). This point is made for two reasons.
First, by declaring all foods clean, the door is opened to the Gentiles. Mark is attempting to show that Gentiles can enter the kingdom of God.
Second, the declaration that all foods are clean was evidently not definitively settled by Jesus for in the early Church the Jewish purification rituals and the distinction between clean and unclean foods continued to be a real problem. This is reflected in the Acts of the Apostles (10:1—11:18) where we find some in the early Church arguing that Gentiles would have to adopt all Jewish practices before they could be declared Christians. Through the leadership of Paul, the first ecumenical council of the Church in Jerusalem decreed differently.
The real question as Mark sees it is a moral one. Authentic conversion to discipleship involves a moral turning around—a leaving behind of what comes from within the heart: evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, greed, evil intentions, deceit, indecency, jealousy, blasphemy, arrogance, and folly (cf vv 21-22). To be declared a follower of Jesus has nothing to do with the observance of ritual washings and sprinklings and clean and unclean foods; rather an authentic follower of Jesus is morally converted in his or her heart.