“[Love] does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil”
(I Corinthians 1:5)
What does it mean, thinks no evil? {KJV} Another translation has it as resentful. A person filled with agape love holds no evil thoughts about other people, and he or she is not resentful about anything they do or say. But the Greek logisesthai suggests somebody who keeps score on all persons with whom he has dealings. You know the type, and Lord bless you if you are one of them. They harbor deep resentments for years, sometimes decades, over some trivial incident they cannot or will not forget. They never forgive you for something you may have said even in jest, or that you spoke in a time of your own crisis. I’ve conducted funerals where the children of the deceased would not sit in the same pew or communicate at the meal following the internment. I’ve listened to the same woeful tales from the unforgiving self-righteous types while I pray that the Lord will soften their calcified hearts and send the Holy Spirit to lubricate their souls with the unguent of that sacred chrism which He gave them when they were chrismated.
Other people who make the term meaningful are those who are accountants. They enter into their ledgers all who have not paid their bills and continue sending reminders. But in this case they never are posted except in the memory banks of those who feel injured, insulted and offended. The guilty parties have long forgotten whatever incidents had triggered the grudge held against them. The keeper of the book of offenses, however, has not forgotten, nor will she. “Maybe God can forgive—but not me! I will never forget what she [or he] had done to me.” [Meaning, of course, they will never forgive.] How sad and lonely are they who are so filled with thoughts of revenge. How much they lose in life because they have a dark closet in their souls where those accounts are stored away and relished with each remembrance of their contents.
What a shock it will be for those who harbor offenses done to them when they reach the Kingdom of heaven. Imagine passing from this lifetime and being welcomed into the eternal joy of light, peace, and the countenance of Christ, only to squint through the intense brightness and find there the targets of all their bitterness and hatred standing in glory among the angels and saints. Would it then be heaven or somewhere else?
St. Paul is saying that love won’t let that happen. When we are in love with the Lord, we love all that He loves. If He forgives all who had wronged Him, who are we to hold grudges, remember offenses, and write them in the ledgers of our memories in indelible ink? What if Lord Jesus were to place before us the record of all our own sins from our infancy to the day we die? “Your sins are forgiven,” He said. Remember the parable of the man forgiven a million dollars he cheated from his master, only to demand five dollars from the one who owed him that pittance [Luke 6].
Angels don’t really have wings. They fly because they carry no burdens of revenge. Saints are like them. To imitate them is to snip the cords of whatever keeps you bound to the earth. Let your prayers include the wish to be liberated from the remembrance of whatever was done to offend you, insult you, humiliate you, mock you, even abuse you physically so that you can let your soul rise to greet the Lord when He comes to claim you as one of His own.