My favorite book is Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. The title characters are a brother and sister and they remember at one point Franny, the sister, decided she didn’t like Jesus because he said, “You are worth more than many sparrows.” How come, she wanted to know, were human beings more valuable than other creatures? That is what Jesus taught. It is not that human beings are the only valuable creatures. Jesus reminds us that not even the tiniest bird has escaped the notice of God. We have an obligation as human beings, therefore, to care to preserve creation and not to exploit it. But the teaching of Jesus is that since every human being has an immortal destiny we have an infinite value.