Reflection - "The Lens of Love"

Reflection: The Lens of Love             Traci Hubbard

October 4, 2026

My thought as I drove to church this morning - How many of us played the game Operation as a kid or with our children or grandchildren? Okay...how many of us considered we were operating on a man who had zero anesthesia?

I heard a story about an older man who had spent much of his life saying, “I don't need anyone.” He was proud of his independence. He fixed things himself. He rarely asked for help. When his friends offered to drive him somewhere, he would say, “I'm fine.” When his family called, he would reassure them, “Everything's under control.”

But one winter morning, he slipped on the ice. Nothing dramatic happened. He wasn't seriously injured. But when he tried to get up, he couldn't. And suddenly the man who had spent a lifetime saying, “I don't need anyone,” found himself lying on the cold ground, calling out for help. His neighbour heard him and came running.

What moved me about the story was not simply that someone helped him get up. It was that the neighbour didn't say, “I told you that you needed people.” Or “Why didn't you ask for help sooner?” Or “You should have been more careful.” He simply knelt beside him and said, “I've got you.” Sometimes love sounds like that. I've got you. I will come. I will stay. I will carry what you cannot carry. This brings us to the story of the Roman centurion.

Matthew tells us that a Roman centurion comes to Jesus because someone in his household is desperately ill. “Lord,” he says, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.” Luke gives us another angle saying the servant was highly valued by the centurion. The centurion hears about Jesus and sends Jewish elders to plead with him. They tell Jesus that this Roman officer has loved their people and even built their synagogue. There is something remarkable happening here. The centurion is a Roman. Jesus is Jewish. The elders are Jewish. The servant is socially beneath the centurion. And yet love has created a connection across every one of those boundaries.

The centurion sees suffering. And suffering becomes more important than status. Love becomes more important than ethnicity, more important than social position, and more important than the lines people have drawn between “us” and “them.” The centurion looks at this person through the lens of love. And when we look through the lens of love, we see differently.

The first thing love does is notice. The centurion notices that his servant is suffering. He could have said, “He's only a servant.” He could have replaced him. He could have considered the loss an unfortunate cost of life. But he doesn't. He notices. This is where loving like Infinite LOVE begins. Not with fixing, or preaching, or having the perfect answer. Love begins with noticing who is hurting? Who has become invisible? Who is carrying something nobody else sees? Who is sitting quietly at the edge of the room? Who has learned to say, “I'm fine,” because nobody has stayed long enough to hear the truth? Love notices. Love moves toward the wounded.

The centurion doesn't merely notice. He acts. He sends for Jesus. Luke tells us that the elders plead earnestly with Jesus on his behalf. Jesus responds by going toward the man's house. That is the movement of love…love moves toward. Fear moves away. Indifference walks past. Prejudice keeps its distance. Love moves toward.

One of the things I love about Jesus is he does not begin by asking, “Is this person worthy?” He begins with, “What does love require here?” So, Jesus moves toward the suffering. Love crosses the boundaries of society.

There is another beautiful detail in this story. The person asking Jesus for help is a Roman military officer. The Roman Empire was the occupying power. This man represented a system that could have made Jesus' people afraid, angry, or resentful. And yet Jesus does not allow the history between them to prevent compassion in the present. Jesus sees the person in front of him.

Now, this does not erase history. It does not pretend oppression doesn't matter. But it shows us something about the Gospel. Love refuses to let another person's category become more important than their humanity. The centurion is Roman. The servant is socially vulnerable. The elders are Jewish. And the followers of Jesus want him to be their Jewish Messiah.  And somehow, in this moment, all those identities are gathered around one simple human reality…someone is hurting. So, love says, then we will care. Love is more than a feeling.

This is where the wisdom of Bell Hooks helps us. In All About Love, Hooks challenges the idea that love is merely something we feel. She describes love as an intentional act and writes that love involves “both an intention and an action.” This gives us a powerful lens of reading these texts. The centurion may have had affection for his servant. But affection alone didn't save the day. He acted. He asked. He reached out. He humbled himself. He sought help. And love became visible through what he did. Perhaps that is one of the questions these texts place before us, “What does love look like when it has hands and feet?”

Sometimes love looks like making the phone call. Sometimes it looks like sitting beside a hospital bed. Sometimes it looks like bringing soup. Sometimes it looks like saying, “Tell me the truth.” Sometimes it looks like apologizing. Sometimes it looks like forgiving. Sometimes it looks like setting a boundary. Sometimes it looks like asking for help. Sometimes it looks like refusing to give up on somebody. Love is not merely something we say. Love is something we practice.

And then comes the part that astonishes Jesus. The centurion says, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. But only speak the word…” He understands authority. He knows what it means to give a command and have someone respond. But he also understands something deeper, Jesus does not need to be physically present for healing to happen. Jesus can simply speak and healing can travel beyond the distance between them. This amazes Jesus. Matthew says Jesus declares that he has not found such faith even in Israel. Then Jesus tells the centurion to go; the servant is healed. Luke ends the story quietly. The people return home and they find the servant well.  No spectacle. No parade. Just healing. Someone who was suffering is now well because someone loved enough to ask.

What if we changed our lens? Imagine looking at people in our congregation and lake Country through a different lens. Not the lens of suspicion. Not the lens of political tribe. Not the lens of what does he do for a job? Not the lens of race. Not the lens of class. Not the lens of sexuality. Not the lens of spiritual beliefs. Not the lens of who deserves what. But the lens of love. What would we see?

We might see the difficult person differently. We might see the stranger differently. We might see the person who votes opposite from us differently. We might see the teenager struggling with identity differently. We might see the elderly person who is lonely differently. We might see the newcomer who is struggling financially differently. We might see the person who has disappointed us differently. And perhaps most importantly, we might see ourselves differently. Because the lens of love doesn't just change how we see other people. It changes how we understand ourselves.

There is one more thing I don't want us to miss. The centurion sees his servant. But Jesus sees the centurion. Jesus sees the person behind the uniform. Behind the power. Behind the authority. Behind the Roman identity. Jesus sees a human being who loves someone and is afraid of losing them. Maybe that is what faith looks like. Not having all the answers. Not being fearless. But bringing the person we love to Infinite LOVE and saying, “Lord, I don't know what else to do. But I know you can help.” That is faith. Faith is sometimes simply love refusing to stop hoping.

Remember the neighbour who knelt beside the man on the ice? “I've got you.” That is the language of love. I believe this is what Jesus is teaching us in this story. When someone falls, I've got you. When someone is sick, I've got you. When someone is living with food scarcity, I’ve got you. When someone is grieving, I've got you. When someone is ashamed, I've got you. When someone feels forgotten, I've got you. Not because we can always fix things. We can't. The centurion couldn't heal his servant. The elders couldn't heal him. Jesus was the healer. But the centurion could love. He could notice. He could ask. He could trust. He could bring his beloved into the presence of Jesus. Folks, this is also our calling.

We cannot fix everything. But we can love. We can notice. We can move toward. We can carry one another. We can pray, ask, trust, and we can make our lives into places where people hear the words, “I've got you.”

So, perhaps our question this week isn't simply, “Do I love people?” A better question for us is, “What do people look like when I look at them through the lens of love?” Because the lens we choose changes everything. Through the lens of fear, we see threats. Through the lens of judgment, we see failures. Through the lens of prejudice, we see categories. But through the lens of love, we see people. And when we choose to look through the heart of Jesus, we see people who are worth moving toward and listening to. We see people worth healing. People worth welcoming. People worth loving.

Folks, every human is born with worthiness, and the DNA of the Divine resides in every human, even the ones we do not like.  May Infinite LOVE give us the grace to see as Jesus sees. May the Spirit soften the places in us that have become hard. May the Spirit help us widen the circle of our compassion. And when someone is hurting, may we be the kind of people who don't simply say, “Someone should do something.” May we become the people who step closer and say…

“I'm here.”

“Tell me what you need.”

“Let me walk with you.”

“I've got you.”

Because love is not only something we believe. Love is something we become and do. When love becomes the lens through which we see the world, we may discover that we are the hearts and hands of Christ.

May it be so, amen.