The Pharisees watched Jesus and the disciples in hopes of finding something they could use to condemn them. They thought they found it at a dinner. The Pharisees caught the disciples eating dinner with unwashed hands. This was a big issue, as it wasn’t just a sanitary matter. Washing your hands before dinner, and the manner in which you washed the pots and pans afterwards, were religious rules, traditions set up by the religious rulers.

The religious leaders called Jesus on it. He responded with this. ““Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” - Mark 7:6-8, ESV.

As far as moral law goes, washing your hands before you eat is not required. Why? God never said it. It was not in the law of Moses. Was it smart to wash? Probably. Would failure to do it send you to hell? No. Jesus was right in His response. If you read the whole story, you will notice that Jesus condemned this practice of adding moral laws for the sake of religion to be used for condemning others publicly.

This kind of ridiculous hypocrisy still happens all the time. One might say, “Ooh, you lied in church!” Lying is a sin whether you are in church or not. Church has nothing to do with it. That is a man-made condemnation like “You are evil if you don’t feed your dog fresh food,” and “How can you live in this pig sty? Cleanliness is next to godliness!” Although those might be beneficial, they are not moral matters.

The weird thing is that a lot of people lay burdensome, condemning religious morality on the shoulders of others without ever recognizing the author of morality, thus condemning themselves. If you know someone who lives this way, ask them to point it out in God’s word. When they can’t, then tell them, “Don’t be a moral hypocrite!! If you want to enforce morality, you probably should actually know God's moral law.” -Pastor Mike

BTW, a fungus is such a hypocrite because it gets on me when it doesn't have mushroom to talk.