Nativity scenes have a few standard elements: a manger, swaddling clothes, happy parents, sheep, maybe the Three Wise Men. They don't generally include Trayvon Martin.

But there he is, wearing a hoodie, a stream of blood pouring from his chest onto the straw-covered floor of the scene outside a methodist church in Southern California, the holy family around him.

There is danger in the manger.

Nativity scene as social commentary

The nativity scene, which went up on Dec. 8, will be taken down on Jan. 5. It's the seventh year that the Claremont United Methodist Church has turned its display into a piece of art intended to spark conversation.

Artist John Zachary has created past installations addressing issues like homelessness and war. The first year, Joseph and Mary were depicted as a modern homeless couple on a ghetto street. The backdrop was a wall of graffiti.

"It was appropriate historically. They were homeless refugees," Zachary noted. "You try to put it in a context of how it would be today."

The idea is for the scenes to serve as reminders and Joseph and Mary were outsiders.

"I think the value of this is that it stretches us to think, what does the birth of Christ call us to do?" Sharon Rhodes-Wickett, the church's lead pastor, said.

'Hard to look at'

A rod, painted red, between the chest and the floor illustrates a stream of blood from a gunshot wound on the depiction of Trayvon Martin. Rhodes-Wickett admits that she finds the violence of the scene unsettling.

"I found this year's hard to look at. It's hard to look at a young man who's shot and bleeding to death. But even though I'm uncomfortable with it, that's the point," Rhodes-Wickett said. "We have to take a look at the violence."

Reaction to the scene has been mixed. One passerby thought the likeness of Trayvon Martin was a zombie inserted by a prankster.

Rhodes-Wickett said her congregation, which meets in a sanctuary designed by architect Richard Neutra, is progressive.

"Most people like something that makes us think and makes us search our hearts," she said. "Some people think it's too edgy. I understand that point of view."