By Protopresbyter-Stavrophor Dr Miloš Vesin
I am not dreaming. I am awake. And yet, it seems as though only moments ago I was drifting through a faint, misty dream. I am awake now, roused by strange sounds coming from down below. Someone is methodically and persistently rummaging through all those large black garbage bags that I threw into the two dumpsters in front of my apartment building on Friday. Friday was one in a series of days spent emptying and sorting through my late parents’ apartment.
What was happening—and is still is—outside my apartment building at this very moment is precisely the reason why, at this unusual hour, I reached for my phone and, propped up on my elbows in bed, began typing. I am typing because of a scene I witnessed only a few moments ago, down by the dumpsters, a scene that refuses to leave my mind. Yet nothing happens by chance. I have known this for a very long time, and I receive such intimations with humility and gratitude. I had already risen and walked to the window, intending to call out to the person—or persons—below: “Please, keep it down a little.” Thanks be to God, I did not! And how could I, once I saw what was unfolding beneath my windows?
On this July morning, while the world still lay asleep, I found myself giving thanks to God for preparing me, in such a vivid and almost theatrical manner, for today’s sermon. Yes, precisely so!
How, by what means, and for what purpose? Most likely because He desires that the eyes of my body, the mind of my heart, and the eyes of my soul should always remain open, so that I may perceive something truly great—even amid the smallest and seemingly most insignificant events, precisely where others might fail to notice even the tiniest seed of anything worthy of reflection. And what I witnessed only moments ago is indeed worthy of pausing over, if only for a little while. Worthy of stopping—and pondering. But let us start at the beginning. And the beginning, of course, is always in the Logos, in the Word of God, for: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
Today’s Gospel reading from the Gospel according to St Matthew (Matthew 14:14–22), upon which, God willing, I shall preach, recounts that wondrous event in which the Lord Christ fed five thousand people with five loaves and two fish. Impossible? Entirely possible! A miracle? Certainly—but only from the superficial perspective of our limited human reasoning. For with God, all things are possible. And Christ, who acts in perfect harmony with the Father—for “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30)—did something profoundly important before multiplying and distributing the food, something He never failed to do.
Before commanding His disciples to distribute what little food they had to the multitude gathered on the hillside where He had just been teaching, Christ first gave thanks to the Father. In other words, He first prayed, and only then did the disciples begin to distribute the food among the people. The true miracle is not simply that every single person ate, for they had already been nourished by Christ’s word itself. The miracle is that they gathered twelve full baskets of what remained—and preserved them. They would be needed later.
And down below, in the dumpsters outside my apartment building, among all those garbage bags of mine, one of our darker-complexioned fellow citizens, while searching through the black refuse bags, noticed a large pizza box lying among them. He picked it up, opened it—and stood there in astonishment. Inside the box, large enough to hold eight slices of a full-sized pizza, he found SIX untouched, fresh slices and TWO that had been only SLIGHTLY BITTEN AT THE EDGE. It had evidently been discarded only a few hours earlier, certainly prepared that very evening, cast aside as something no longer needed or even considered desirable.
And now the real drama begins. Upon discovering the fresh, large, and almost untouched pizza, our dark-skinned fellow citizen exclaimed aloud, “Oh… look at this, look at this!” Then he lifted his eyes towards heaven, reverently made the sign of the Cross, and said loudly enough for me to hear clearly from my third-floor window: “Thank You, Lord! I never expected this, and yet You have blessed me with such a gift!”
He then quietly sat down beside the dumpster and began to eat with evident gratitude and delight. One slice… then another… a third… a fourth. Halfway through the fourth slice, he stopped. Carefully, he returned the remaining half to the box, closed it with even greater care, and placed it into his large shoulder bag with an almost reverential gesture.
If I could, I would invite this unknown fellow citizen to preach today’s sermon instead of me. For by that solemn and sacred act of reverence for food, he had already preached. Food that had been discarded, yet was still fresh and wholesome. Our daily bread, cast away.
Indeed, the root of all our problems lies in the way we respond to what God so generously provides—gifts that we either reject or even throw away. And, of course, no one is going to organize a street protest because someone recklessly— how else could such an act be described?—discarded a full pizza box containing eight large slices, only two of which had been slightly tasted. Yet perhaps every street should be brought to a halt—this one and every other street, in every city and every nation upon God’s earth. For how many untouched pizzas, loaves of bread, cutlets, cakes, pieces of celebratory tortes, and countless other foods were thrown away last night and throughout the night into the dumpsters outside my apartment building and those of other cities and countries?
Until we allow the Gospel to echo within our own hearts, it is difficult to imagine that anyone, from any direction whatsoever, will ever be able to help us. As long as those “ignored people” continue standing beside dumpsters, thanking God because He has unexpectedly blessed them—while He, in truth, blesses every one of us every day and every hour—and yet we, though possessing physical sight, remain blind because the eyes of our hearts are closed, neither perceiving nor appreciating His gifts. And as long as that larger portion of humanity—and we ourselves belong to that majority, that so-called “civilized” world, or rather that half-enlightened world which so readily judges others without truly knowing either them or ourselves—continues to behave in such a distorted and perverse manner towards our daily bread, there can be no salvation for us.
But miracles never cease. Our somewhat darker-complexioned fellow citizen, whose soul was so remarkably pure, FIRST took the two slices that had already been slightly bitten into, and only afterwards reached for those that remained untouched. Without the slightest trace of disgust.
How far we are from him, from our somewhat darker-complexioned fellow citizen. Very, very far indeed. And how much closer he was this morning—and it truly was morning, for it was already half past four—to Christ and to today’s Gospel! He, who perhaps has never even read, or perhaps never even heard, the Gospel account of the miraculous multiplication of the loaves.
Food is always to be found. There is sufficient food, even abundant food—but only if we approach it as something holy, with thanksgiving to God.
My heartfelt thanks go to our somewhat darker-complexioned fellow citizen. He did far more than simply help me; through his actions, he composed and delivered today’s sermon on my behalf. Above all, thanks be to God, who, through this unknown neighbour, sent me such a profound lesson and a message.
Now I pray only that the Lord will grant that the remaining two hours of sleep will be enough for me to be able to function, as it is already half past four, and I must rise again at half past six…
Amen.
This is the authorised text of the sermon delivered by the author during the Divine Liturgy at the Church of the Holy Emperor Constantine and Empress Helena in the Grbavica district of Novi Sad, on the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, 13/26 July 2026, the feast of the Synaxis of the Holy Archangel Gabriel.
We express our sincere gratitude to Protopresbyter-Stavrophor Dr Miloš Vesin for choosing the Kinonia portal as the first place of publication for the authorised version of this remarkable sermon.