While he was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him; so he went in and sat at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, "Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of extortion and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give for alms those things which are within; and behold, everything is clean for you. "But woe to you Pharisees! for you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. Luke 11:37–42 (RSV)
As we have noted before, Jesus was not concerned with whom He broke bread. One day it is Matthew, the tax collector; the next, a Pharisee. No Pharisee would invite a tax collector to dinner, nor would a tax collector attend a meal where he would be the object of pious indignation. Jesus broke bread with whoever would join Him for a meal.
The Pharisees were concerned with the Law of God beyond the point of obsession. It was held that if ten Jews could keep the Law perfectly for one day, then the Messiah would come. It would be a wonder if one Pharisee kept the First Commandment for a day, let alone the other 612 commandments in the Torah. One would have to credit them for trying.
Keeping the Law was a desirable goal for the Pharisees; it soon became the practice of looking for anyone's tiniest failure to keep the Law. It doesn't take too much time of someone scrutinizing your every action, waiting to pounce on the slightest error, for you to begin to resent a Pharisee.
The Pharisee who invited Jesus to a meal was astonished that Jesus didn't wash His hands before they ate. He could not rejoice that he was breaking bread with Jesus. He was concerned with protecting God from those whose fingernails had a bit of dirt under them.
Jesus never is harsh with sinners who come to Him for mercy and grace. Jesus is kind and gentle to those who know they are sinners without hope, save God the Father should act in mercy. Not so with the Pharisees, the scribes, lawyers, priests, and other 'pious' folk who can't imagine that they are sinners on the same level as a prostitute.
Jesus is gentle with tax collectors and prostitutes, for they have no illusions about their status before God. They need the soothing balm of grace. The 'pious' Temple folk who have convinced themselves that their sins are a small matter need to be shaken from their self-deception.
The Father loves them all and desires all come to Him. Jesus will not play with the pretense that the Pharisee's legal piety gets them anywhere. They have turned God's gift in the Law into an impossible standard to which they hold everyone. They offer no consolation to a terrified soul that fails to keep the law, only more law.
He teaches the Pharisees that all their obsession with the Law is not even half of who God desires them to be, He would have justice, and the love of God be that which they are all known.