NOTES for Mar 14:7
Speaking of the poor, whom His disciples always had, and of Himself, whom they did not always have with them, Jesus draws attention to the system of priorities characteristic of normal Christian life. The main problem here is that Christians in every age have looked at Christianity, first, primarily as a religion, and second, as a practical religion, a religion of "good works."
This view was helped considerably by the fact that Jesus Himself places love at the center: love for God, for Himself, and for one another. In practice, love for God and for Christ was often forgotten, while love for one's neighbor was understood precisely as the religion of "good works." Of course, love for Christ was also remembered formally, but it was somehow taken for granted: unlike the same poor, He appears to need no help, especially now, after the resurrection, after the ascension, after He already sits at the right hand of the Father, while neighbors are in a far less advantageous condition and need precisely that practical help.
If, in Christian history, the emphasis was placed on love for Christ, it often poured out into something sugary and emotional, and at times directly sensual, so that people observing such religiosity from outside quite reasonably thought that it would be better to walk the path of practical service, the path of the religion of "good works," than to indulge in such strange and sometimes unhealthy religious exaltation. Usually this was formulated in the sense that love for Christ and for God is taken for granted, and it is manifested in those very "good works" for the benefit of one's neighbor. Jesus, however, reminds His disciples that Christianity first of all presupposes intense relationships with Himself, and only then everything else.
Love is not an emotion and not exaltation; it is will and a spiritual state. But such a spiritual state does not appear and support itself by itself. It must be cultivated, and here constant concentration on Christ and on relationships with Him is necessary, a concentration of the will, not intellectual and not emotional-sensual. Love as a spiritual state is born from these relationships and is supported by this effort of the will. Like every love, it presupposes purposeful spiritual efforts and the spiritual work of two.
All good works of every kind, in order to be good without quotation marks, must be derived from the love that binds the disciple to Jesus; they must be done and exist in the space of the relationships that bind the doer of them to Jesus. The poor will indeed always be found, but whether there will be relationships depends on the person. That is why Jesus draws the disciples' attention to Himself: without Him, "good works" will remain good only in quotation marks, no matter how hard the people doing them try "for Christ's sake."