The story revolves around a young woman who is trying to choose between two men and trying to get her own movie/documentary produced and shown. But her luck is not very good and she gets bounced from job to job and man to man. At one point she is trying to sort things out, she says to one of her friends, "You know, I wish life was just like the Brady Bunch. You know. Where everything gets solved in half an hour." Her friend looked at her for a second, then said, "Yeah, but Mr. Brady died of AIDS." Indeed, Robert Reed, the actor who played Mr. Brady, died a few years ago.
No, life does not always turn out like the Brady Bunch. People die, accidents happen, people get divorced, the good guys don't always win and sometimes the bad guys get away. Life and creation are filled with paradoxes. There are no guarantees, even though we'd like to have some.
Job thought he had a guarantee. Job is a character in the book of the Bible by the same name. Job had been a righteous and God fearing man who had been blessed with riches and a great family. But one day he lost everything. And Job blamed God. Job charged God with breaking the rules, with not blessing and protecting Job after he had been such a good man.
After he had screamed and yelled all he could, Job got a visit from God. In person! Expecting to get some kind of explanation for why he had suffered, Job got something very different. Instead of explanations, God simply showed Job all of creation and invited Job to be a part of it. The creation God put on display was wondrous, but also full of paradoxes. It is a world, as one writer said, "where paradox and incongruity are integral to its design. God does not eliminate the forces of chaos, the role of death, or the presence of the wicked. They operate within the eternal restraints of God's design. Light is balanced by darkness. Each night the wicked function, but with each dawn they are exposed and contained."
There are only two certainties in life. One is that life is uncertain. Life is not a sitcom, it is not like the Brady Bunch. The wicked do function, death does occur, we fail. Go through life looking always for the Rosy Scenario and you will get clobbered. Accept life as being like the Swiss Alps, with peaks and valleys, and you just may do all right.
The second certainty is that no matter how many peaks or valleys, God is there with us. Always has been and always will be. If we are willing to reach out, willing to acknowledge that God offers us a relationship that can enrich and empower our lives, then we will know that we are not alone. It is a crazy, exciting, and complicated life. But who among us would really want to miss it?