NOTES for Mar 14:7
Speaking about the poor, whom His disciples always had, and about 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 as primarily a religion, and second as a practical religion, a religion of "good works."
This view was helped considerably by the fact that Jesus Himself puts love at the center: love for God, for Him Himself, and for one another. In practice, people often forgot love for God and for Christ, while love for neighbor was understood precisely as a religion of "good works." Of course, love for Christ too was formally remembered, but it was somehow taken for granted: unlike the poor, He seems to need no help, especially now, after the resurrection, after the ascension, after He is already seated at the Father's right hand, while neighbors are in a much less advantageous condition and need that very practical help.
When Christian history placed the emphasis on love for Christ, it often turned into something sugary and emotional, sometimes even openly sensual, so that people observing such religiosity from the outside reasonably thought it would be better to follow 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 to mean that love for Christ and for God is taken for granted, and that it is manifested in those very "good works" for the benefit of the neighbor. Meanwhile, Jesus reminds His disciples that Christianity first of all presupposes intense relationships with Him Himself, and only then everything else.
Love is not emotion and not exaltation; it is will and a spiritual condition. Yet such a spiritual condition does not appear and sustain itself by itself. It must be cultivated, and here constant concentration on Christ and on one's relationship with Him is necessary, a concentration of will, not intellectual or emotional-sensual concentration. Love as a spiritual condition is born from these relationships and is sustained by this effort of will; like every love, it presupposes purposeful spiritual effort and spiritual work by two persons.
All good works, every one of them, in order to be good without quotation marks, must be derived from the love that binds the disciple with Jesus. They must be done and must exist in the space of the relationships that bind the one doing them with Jesus. The poor will indeed always be found, but whether there will be relationships depends on the person. That is why Jesus directs the disciples' attention to Himself: without Him, "good works" will remain good in quotation marks, no matter how hard the people doing them try to do them "for Christ's sake."