We need to sort a few things out.

It's that time of year it again. It's the Christmas season with all of usual fanfare. And while trees, wreaths, ribbons, and lights are all certainly indicative of Christmas, there is one thing, above all else, that means that Christmas is really here...coin sorters. I was walking through several department stores today and found stacks upon stacks of coin sorters decorating the stores. "Ah ha!," you say, "Coin sorters are gifts, not decorations!" But I beg to differ. Do you own a coin sorter? Have you ever bought a coin sorter as a gift for anyone else? I didn't think so. No one has any practical use for coin sorter in his or her home. Yet every year, out they come. They are purely superfluous, the epitome of a decoration. Perhaps more importantly, however, they are deeply symbolic of Christmas.

Do you remember Jesus's parable of the two vending machine owners? One vending machine owner sorted and rolled the coins he collected from his vending machines by hand. While the other used a hand-cranked coin sorting machine (they didn't have electricity in ancient Jerusalem). The one using the soring machine had lower operating costs per vending machine and thus had a cost advantage on his competitor who rolled by hand. Eventually, he was able to price his competition out of business, and he had a monopoly on the vending machine market in Jerusalem. What does this parable teach us? Actually, I'm not really sure...maybe I should have stuck to the mustard seed one. I know that that one tells about how Jesus loved mustard. Anyway, Santa Claus gets involved at some point, and that's why the coin sorter represents Christmas.

So, next time you walk past a large stack of coin sorters while searching for last minute gifts on December 23, allow them to fill you with the Christmas spirit...but don't buy one. That's a terrible gift!