My favorite book of all time is Franny and Zooey by J.D.Salinger. It is about a brother and sister who have been on a spiritual quest from when they were young. In one dramatic scene the younger sister barges into her brother’s room and tells him she doesn’t like Jesus any more. Why? Franny (the sister) points to a passage from St. Luke’s Gospel where Jesus says: “You are worth more than many sparrows.” That can’t be right, she says. The sparrows are beautiful and they never hurt anyone. Human beings can be cruel, hateful, unjust, violent, ugly. How can a harmful human being be worth more than an innocent sparrow? Zooey explains that she has arrived at the heart of what it means to follow Jesus. Every person is a child of God, made in God’s image and likeness, and possessing an eternal destiny. No matter what they have done or how they act, their identity before God is not changed. While we might prefer the company of our pets or watching the antics of a sea otter or the playfulness of a dolphin, it is our neighbors — even those neighbors we don’t like — who have a claim on our love and charity.
