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, primarily as a religion, and second, as a practical religion, a religion of "good works."
This view was greatly encouraged by the fact that Jesus Himself places love at the center: love for God, for Him Himself, and for one another. In practice, people often forgot about 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 apparently needs no help, especially now, after the resurrection, after the ascension, after He already sits at the right hand of the Father, while neighbors remain in a much less favorable state and need that very practical help.
If in Christian history the emphasis was placed on love for Christ, it often poured itself out into something overly sweet and emotional, and at times even frankly 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 give oneself to 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 same "good works" for the benefit of one's neighbor. Meanwhile, Jesus reminds His disciples that Christianity first of all presupposes intense relations with Him Himself, and only then everything else.
Love is not emotion and not exaltation; it is will and a spiritual state. Such a spiritual state, however, does not appear or sustain itself on its own. It must be cultivated, and here constant concentration on Christ and on relations with Him is necessary, concentration of the will, not intellectual or emotional-sensual concentration. Love as a spiritual state is born from these relations and is sustained by this effort of the will. Like every love, it presupposes purposeful spiritual effort and the spiritual work of two. Any good works, if they are 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 relations that bind the one doing them to Jesus. The poor will indeed always be found, but whether there will be relations 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, however hard the people doing them may try to do them "for Christ's sake."