Human traditions and external manifestations of religion have a way of beclouding the essentials of true relationship with God. This is not new. The problem was already there at the time of Jesus, and it was the major point of conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of his time. In today's gospel, Jesus disagreed with the Pharisees on how they placed their tradition over the clear teachings of the Word of God. It began from the Pharisees' observation that the disciples of Jesus did not follow the rigorous process of ablution before eating their food. 

It is good to note that the strict observance of ablution was not for the purpose of hygiene but mere ritual purification. It was based on the conception that a person becomes unholy and unpleasing to God by the things that pass through his/her mouth into his/her body. This belief leads to hypocrisy which does not improve the true relationship with God, and Jesus was not taking it. 

Having criticized the externalism that characterized the religious life of his time, Jesus directly addressed the crowd who have been the subject of this indoctrination. He asked them to reason with him and see that nothing that enters a person's mouth can defile him before God because what is eaten does not remain in the person but passes through the body to the toilet or urinary. It was a new teaching, a sort of scandal to people who have been taught to observe scrupulously the tradition of washing. The apostles had to come privately to Jesus to tell him how scandalous the people felt on hearing his teaching. That is the simplicity of God and complexity of humans. Sometimes, we believe that the more complex a doctrine the more authentic its content. 

The message of Jesus today is that God does not need complex things from his children. He only wants them to keep their hearts clean by abstaining from sin. They should, therefore, struggle to be doers of the word in its simplicity (Jas.1:22). The word of God proclaimed by Jesus Christ is the key for the interpretation of any tradition. As the Prophet Micah pointed out, God wants only three things: "You have been told, O mortal, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do justice and love goodness and walk humbly with your God.” (6:8). We worry about a lot of things concerning our salvation, but this should not be the case because the essential is already revealed in Jesus Christ through the Scripture and teachings of the Church.