Both of the readings we heard today were written by and for communities longing for change. These visions of the future were described by those whose present tense was filled with the pain, suffering, despair, and more.

Life for the people of Isaiah’s day and life for the early church during the days of the book of Revelation was in many ways hard and bleak and without hope.

The images in the visions were in response to what was happening in the real world.

Babies were born into a world that wasn’t fit for them; dying of disease and hunger before they had a chance to grow up. The lands, vineyards and homes of poor peasant farmers were being taken over by imperial and foreign powers. Security and safety were scarce, war and betrayal abounded. Weeping and wailing had drowned out any laughter or singing.

Out of the deep pain and despair of their people, Isaiah and John (the writer of Revelation) paint fantastic - perhaps even ridiculous pictures of hope. I’ll bet many people of their day thought they were foolish, impractical, even crazy.

How could they dare to imagine such a new heaven and earth emerging out of their present circumstances? Such changes they dreamed about were impossible - if anything the world and their circumstances would only get worse.

We know something of that experience don’t we? We know about pain and losses, disappointments and suffering that seem to take over our lives in an absolute fashion until we are convinced that this is what life will always be for us.

A relationship or a marriage breaks up and we envision of life of rejection and loneliness; an illness attacks our health and we envision of life of pain and disability; a loved one dies and we envision a life of grief and emptiness; we make a mistake and we envision our lives as failure and disappointment; we suffer an injustice and we imagine a life of further indignities and abuse; we lose a job and we envision a life of scarcity and anxiety; we are bruised by anger or hatred and we envision a life of unending violence. At times such as these, there is a powerful voice within and often without that tries to convince us that the totality of our lives will be defined and described by what we are presently going through. The voice tempts us to despair and to hopelessness; the voice points to a life that might be better described as a slow death.

So what do we do when someone like Isaiah or John walks into our world and tells us about a future where life is good; full of hope and joy? What do you do with the scripture passages that you heard today? Do you laugh at the absurdity of their dreams? Do you walk away shaking your head? Do you write off their faith in God as delusional?

Let me be clear, I believe that to be faithful to the God we know in Jesus Christ, means that we live with our eyes wide open to what is happening in our own lives and to all life on this planet. This means that we don’t try to cover up the suffering and the dangers and the evils that do exist.

But it also means that we don’t close our eyes to glimpses and the signs that point to visions like those found in the book of Isaiah or Revelation.

For I believe that being faithful means that we trust, even when we have no concrete evidence in front of us, that God is at work in our world creatively sustaining, restoring and renewing the world through the power of love.

Yes, I know that such a trust in God often seems to be impractical, foolish and even crazy.

And you know what, I think that God’s vision of what life should be like often calls us to a hope and to actions that to the rest of the world appear to be impractical, foolish and even crazy. Sometimes it is only visions such as those read to us today that can pull us out of the downward spiral of disappointment and despair where it is all too easy to trade God’s gift of life into a burden where we simply wait for death.

You see, I believe that visions of hope and wholeness hold open a space for an alternate reality to take shape; for the spark of inspiration to take hold of us and move us out of despair or paralysis and into taking new steps toward a future of God’s imagining.

The story of Erin Gruwell and her students from Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach California are in the feature movie, now out on DVD called "Freedom Writers". It is a story of a vision and of a teacher whom many viewed as impractical, foolish and even crazy.

In the 1990’s Woodrow Wilson was an integrated school and one of the most culturally diverse schools in the USA. Although located in a fairly upscale neighbourhood in the Los Angeles region, most of the students were bused into the school from less affluent areas of social housing commonly called the ‘projects’.

In 1994, when Erin began as a student teacher at Wilson, the region was still impacted by the violence and the racial tensions that erupted after the verdict in the Rodney King trial.

Erin, a nice middle class white girl in pearls entered a first year class room where the reality of her students was one of violence, gangs, hatred, poverty, racism and despair. What little trust or loyalty the students had was to their own gang - each group stuck to their own, the blacks, the Latinos, the Asians, the poor whites and the more affluent whites, commonly called Beverly Hills 90210! The students in Erin’s class had been shot at, and a number had fired a gun themselves. Some no longer lived at home; but on the street; some had been beaten by a parent; others had a parent in prison. One student remarked that he had been to more funerals of friends than to birthday parties.

Into this reality, arrived Erin with a dream of creating a harmonious environment where her students would thrive and grow and learn - eventually graduating and going on to further education. As a student teacher, Erin received no salary, and so she worked two jobs in addition to her teaching schedule - as a salesclerk in a department store and as a concierge in a hotel.

In her first day of her first year English class, one of the students predicted that Erin would only last a week. So too, it was the perception of the school administration and staff that Erin’s students would never make it either - that most would drop out and never finish high school. And so, there was little investment into their education - their classroom was in disrepair with graffiti on the desks. They were never given any new books because of course they would simply deface or steal them.

No one held out any hope for them; and beyond the turf war victories of their relative gangs, they had little hope in themselves.

One day, one of the students drew a distorted caricature of one of the black students - with huge exaggerated lips. As the drawing made its way around the classroom everyone laughed hysterically and when it arrived at the victim’s desk, he looked as if he would cry. When Erin got hold of the picture, it reminded her of the propaganda drawings created by the Nazis of Jews and Blacks during the Holocaust. When Erin made the comparison with her class, no one knew what the Holocaust was.

Erin grabbed on to this lack of knowledge as an opportunity to help her students move away from gang mentalities and racist attitudes toward the building of a community of tolerance and respect.

And thus began her impractical and foolish actions. With no budget and little support from the school board, she worked more shifts and asked friends and family to help finance a field trip to the Museum of Tolerance, where students were exposed to the realities of the holocaust.

She used the Christmas gift money from her father to purchase them brand new books for their English classes. She arranged for them to view ‘Schindler’s List’ in her neighbourhood along with dinner after the movie. A local reporter, curious about the group of such diverse teenagers, a bit out of place in a mostly all-white neighbourhood, wrote an article in a local paper. The article led to an opportunity for the class to meet Thomas Keneally, who wrote Schindler’s List after meeting a man from the Warsaw Ghetto who had been saved by Oscar Schindler during the second world war.

Thomas was so moved by their experiences of violence and intolerance that he encouraged them to write their own stories; this led to a meeting with Steven Spielberg, director of Schindler’s list. It also led to the seeds of an idea - the ‘Freedom Writers Diary’, written by the students of Erin’s English Class. Inspired by the Diary of Anne Frank, the Freedom Writers Diary became a vehicle for the students to write about their own reality and to begin to formulate a hope and a vision for a new reality.

All of the 150 students who wrote the Freedom Writers Diary finished high school. There is now a nonprofit organization, The Freedom Writers Foundation which has received the prestigious Spirit of Anne Frank award. It offers training for teachers, scholarships for students all designed to reach and teach, empower and inspire those who are often left out and left behind.

And it all started with a crazy vision and the foolish and impractical actions of a student teacher.

In the words of Isaiah and John, God holds out to us a crazy vision of a world of peace and justice, joy and healing. And God calls us as individuals and as a church to the foolish work of helping to fulfill that vision. It is a life’s work that may not always seem to be practical; we may be called upon to use our resources and our talents in unexpected ways and beyond our imagining. And perhaps if we do so, we will make space in our hearts and lives for God to move in among us and create a new heaven and a new earth in our midst. Amen.

To learn more about the ‘Freedom Writers’ and Erin Gruwell:

The Freedom Writers Diary by The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell, copyright 1999 by The Tolerance Education Foundation

Published by Broadway Books.

Teach With Your Heart (a memoir of Erin Gruwell's experience of working with the 'Freedom Writers) by Erin Gruwell

published by Broadway Books copyright 2007 by Erin Gruwell

‘Freedom Writers’ the movie, now out on DVD with Hilary Swank starring as Erin Gruwell (available to rent at any movie rental store)