A teacher, every year in her fifth grade class, had what she called the Scholastic Olympics. What happened was that she would ask each child to pick a sentence from literature, name the author and source from which it came, and then explain why this sentence could be called the most important sentence ever written. You can probably guess what some of the entries were, like "Fourscore and seven years ago," and "All people are created equal." A lot of political phrases like that. There were also a lot of literary phrases, like "To be or not to be." The girl who got the most points for knowing that "To be or not to be" was from a play got some points taken away because she said the author was a writer for the Bill Cosby Show.

There were fourteen entries of the same biblical verse, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," probably because the teacher had said that was her favorite verse.

You know what sentence won? It was not written by a famous author at all. It wasn't to be found in any literary source. It appeared on a postcard from Hawaii that one of these fifth grade girls received from her stepfather, who was on a honeymoon with the girl's mother. The teacher was uneasy about this, because the children were supposed to explain why this is the most important sentence ever written. But she let her speak. The girl said that until she received that postcard, she didn't know how her stepfather felt about her. The girl's entry won the prize. It was written on the back of a postcard from Waikiki Beach . It said, " Charlotte, I love you."

That's the greatest sentence ever written. And there are many variations of it. And wherever it is heard, and from whatever source it comes, it constitutes a blessing. It is here in this text this morning. It's here in the parable of the Prodigal Son, and it's addressed to everyone. To sons and to daughters, to prodigals and to the righteous: "Come home. I love you."