Not long ago as I was traveling between home blessings, a sign on the side of the road caught my eye. It said, “Slow Church Ahead.” Now, I try not to be too nitpicky about such things in general, but at that particular moment I found the absence of a comma after the word “Slow” pretty funny. Of course, I understood that the maker of the sign meant to communicate something like, “Slow down, because there’s a church ahead, and traffic may be affected by drivers turning into the driveway.” All the same, I couldn’t help pondering what it would mean for a church to be slow, and why a sign would be warning me about that fact. If indeed there were a slow church somewhere up ahead, what should I do about that?

Then I had another, more serious, thought. If there’s a slow church, it’s the Orthodox Church. Any first-time visitor to a Sunday Orthros, followed by the Divine Liturgy, followed perhaps by a memorial Trisagion for someone, will tell you that. Orthodox Christians are kind of like the Ents in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, whose philosophy is, “Anything worth saying takes a long time to say.” The eloquence of our worship is not a mere matter of show, however. The Church is a loving Mother, who understands that we are slow to understand, and slow to adjust to the atmosphere of prayer. We need that time to get detoxified and recharged. So it is we who are slow, and the Church accommodates our slowness.

Then again, anyone who studies church history will also tell you about slowness. It takes centuries for the Church to make certain changes, and other changes (thankfully) never come. This is because She remains faithful to Her Bridegroom, Christ. Her fidelity results in remarkable stability, with staying power that has outlasted countless persecutions, martyrdoms, and crises. Unfortunately, many perceive this faithfulness as another kind of “slowness.” We seem behind the times, and therefore increasingly irrelevant, even foolish.

Paradoxically, however, the “slow” Church is also the one that is always “ahead.” What looks backwards from a worldly perspective turns out, once you enter into it that life in Christ that the Church offers, to be stunningly progressive. Nothing else – no other philosophy or religious system or way of life – offers such authentic and dependable spiritual advancement to those who really embrace it.

Actually, that’s the way the Gospel is, so it should come as no surprise that the Church has the same character. The Lord is constantly boggling the minds of his listeners by at once affirming the unchanging, universal truth, and, at the same time, shocking them with the newness and freshness of His words and actions. Everybody knows that adultery is wrong. The Lord affirms that, but at the same time He puts the men accusing the adulterous woman to shame and tells her that He does not condemn her. He gives her a completely fresh start, telling her, “Go and sin no more.” (Jn. 8:11) The world slings accusations, hurls complaints and demands allegiance, torturing itself with its lack of peace. The Church quietly responds with humble love for the whole world: “Come, and find the peace that you long for. You will discover the Truth – Jesus Christ – and He will make you free."

The Church is “the pillar and ground of the truth.” (I Tim. 3:15) She is not just slow to change what has been proclaimed throughout the ages; She absolutely refuses to embrace a lie by offering us anything but the truth. At the same time, try as we may, we will never catch up to the noble standard She calls us to. As long as we are in this life, we can never stand still and say, “Ah. Now I’ve arrived!” What we can say is, “Ah. Now I’ve come to stand in the Path that leads where I want to go.” The only question that remains is how well I’ll manage to stay on the Path. That will depend on whether I keep following the signs for the “Slow Church Ahead.”