The Pharisees come up to Jesus and ask him why his disciples eat food without washing their hands. The Pharisaical tradition had developed in which they thoroughly washed their hands to avoid being "unclean".
Jesus does not answer the question at first, but rather gets mad and calls them hypocrites. He then discusses how they were to honor their parents (#5 of the 10 Commandments), but they were dedicating money and property to God so they would not have to give it to their parents. In essence, dis honoring their parents but in the service of God. Jesus disapproves of this.
It is interesting that this is the analogy that Jesus draws on because he would know about the conflict of serving God v. honoring parents. Jesus had two sets of parents he had to obey equally. It was this that led to a conflict when he was twelve and he stayed in his "father's house"(temple) while his human family had left.
Jesus calls the crowd around together to be very clear and precise. Nothing one can ever eat makes him unclean, but rather it is what comes out of his mouth that makes him unclean.
The disciples privately ask him to clarify this even further. He responds by calling them "dull". I think this might be the only time Jesus seems to suggest that a question was a stupid question. Alternatively, Jesus might be frustrated. However, the text states disciples had already foregone the washing tradition (since the Pharisees asked him about this), so the issue probably came up already among them.
Jesus responds by further clarifying that the things that come out of a person's heart make him unclean. Rather, food does not go into the heart, but goes into the stomach and eventually comes out as poop. The text states that by saying this, Jesus made all food clean.
A few things:
1. The principle articulated is very broad and encompasses far more than washing hands prior to eating. Rather, it seems to be the basis of revoking the entire Jewish rules on clean/unclean meats.
Personally, I think it is a far more unambiguous revocation of the dietary rules than Peter's vision of the sheet of all animals. (Acts 10). Peter's vision is actually contemporaneously interpreted by Peter in the text to mean "eat with the Gentiles". (Acts 11). However, when Peter's vision is read in light of these statements by Jesus and the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), a reasonable conclusion is that the dietary rules are being revoked.
So, going back to the Sermon on the Mount, an open question remains - is this "fulfilling" the law?
2. On a literal level, this actually stands in contrast to John 6 which discusses that one must eat Jesus' flesh and drink his blood. John 6 seems to suggest that there is a spiritual component to what one eats.
However, we know that Jesus will implement a symbolic representation of his body and blood at the Last Supper. We know the end of the story, but the original hearers may have been completely confused. This might explain why the disciples privately asked him to clarify what he was talking about.
3. Later, Paul will even further clarify that what we eat can reflect malice on our hearts. In particular, whether it is acceptable to eat food offered to idols.
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