I spent a few hours this afternoon crafting the RE:NEW project semi-monthly newsletter, and just as I was getting ready to send it out my twitter feed started lighting up with news about the impending verdict in the Johannes Mesherle trial. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a year and a half since the tragic shooting death of Oscar Grant, while in handcuffs, at the hands of a BART police officer.

At the moment of this writing, the community’s response has largely been peaceful and restrained. Many are disappointed in the verdict of involuntary manslaughter, believing that it was a failure on the part of the justice system. Regardless of whether it’s right to do so, this trial and the subsequent verdict have quickly become a referendum on the American justice system and its’ relationship with the African American community, specifically young black men.

I’m not prepared to issue a statement favoring either side of the debate. I don’t know the evidence in this specific incident, and I can’t get inside the head of Mesherle or the jurors to know what really happened leading up to this moment. I do, however, wish to state what I believe will always be the case when a people is faced with moments of historical consequence: that our response is very much a part of the event to which we are responding, and that a prayerful, prophetic dedication to peace for all will pierce the darkness of injustice far more effectively than angry reactions ever could.

This unique kind of resistance – the nonviolent activism championed by Dr. King and Gandhi – will always be the best response because it powerfully shines a light on the futility of violence. It is a beautiful, prophetic dissonance – a peculiar, strange chord that plays like a genius jazz riff against the ugly and monotonous drumbeat of war.

Do you want to make a difference? Take a stand for justice? Turn the other cheek. Fight injustice with love. Speak the truth with tenderness and conviction. Love your enemies and pray for the people who refuse you justice.

Pray for the peace of Oakland. Pray for justice.

I should begin with an April Fool’s disclaimer: this is a true story.

Years ago, before I became an idealistic, slightly confused adrenaline-seeking spiritual artist, I was an idealistic, slightly confused adrenaline-seeking teenager. A very generous portion of my teen experience was immersed in what is known in the evangelical church world as a “drama team,” an evangelistic band of willing cohorts who, with passionate choreography and accurate lip-synching to popular Christian music, sort-of-danced the message of the church into the hearts and souls of whomever might have happened to be at the park where we were scheduled for an outreach on a particular Saturday afternoon.

One night at our weekly practice, our team leader, Chip, entered the room with a wild look in his eyes. We were getting ready to perform for our home church, a tough crowd that had already seen most of our material. We needed something fresh, something unpredictable. What we needed was a show stopper, and Chip had the goods.

Chip’s plan was as simple as it was brilliant: instead of simply announcing the team and doing our thing, we would interrupt the service, running in and yelling at the top of our lungs, wearing ski masks and brandishing (very authentic-looking) air rifles and pistols, and stage a hostile armed takeover of the church service.

This all seemed like a very good idea, from discreetly purchasing the air rifles, to our secret practices, all the way to the moment we entered the room to hijack the church. It wasn’t until a very large, off-duty police officer jumped out of his seat and began to reach for his service weapon, that we began to retrace our steps and wonder, should we have warned someone we were doing this? Maybe told the pastor? Have some kind of safe word?

Thankfully, nobody was hurt, and we survived to tell the story. I learned a hard lesson that night: religious services are not the place to conduct elaborate pranks.  However.

However… I’ve been reading the parables of Jesus with fresh eyes lately, and have been surprised at the playful way he turns narrow-hearted religiosity on its’ head to surprise us with a wide-angle lens of love and grace. Try as we might to reduce Jesus’ stories into comfortable little morality plays that fit into three-point sermons on self-improvement, he skillfully and unremittingly  weaves tales that scandalize religious moralism: from the Good Samaritan (social outcast who showed loving concern where the priest and pastor did not), to the Prodigal Son (law-abiding older brother is outraged at a father’s overt celebration of his wayward younger brother’s return home), to the Shrewd Manager (guy gets fired and risks everything on his ex-boss’s reputation for generosity by winning allies at his boss’s expense), it’s not surprising to me in the least that while Jesus’ life and teaching were unappealing at best to the religious elite, he was warmly accepted by the misfits, punks and outcasts of his day.

Maybe Jesus is less Pope and more Ashton Kutcher.

What does it mean to follow Jesus and make disciples? As I spend less and less time in the church container, I’m discovering how faith and religion are strange bedfellows. The work of religion is to protect and sanction the ways we approach God, talk about God, and interact with God. This is important, because it provides a rhythm for us to dance with the divine amidst the chaos of life. On the other hand, religion also inoculates us from the surprise twists, unexpected lessons and paradigm-shattering paradoxes that so often characterize a life of faith. Faith teaches us that God exists where religion fears to tread, that beauty and grace are unfolding outside the programs we care for so dearly, and that we are still young on the journey toward love. This is important, because it provides a musicality for us to dance to the hidden rhythms of love in what seem like the chaotic drumbeats of life. The art of following Jesus is found in learning to dance between these two worlds.