A few years ago, we had a representative from ''Teach America'' visit our campus. Teach America tries to recruit this nation's most talented college graduates to go into some of the nation's worst public schools. This is Teach America's means of transforming our schools into something better.

This woman stood up in front of a large group of Duke students, a larger group than I would suppose would come out to this sort of thing, and said to them, ''I can tell by looking at you that I have probably come to the wrong place. Somebody told me this was a BMW campus and I can believe it looking at you. Just looking at you, I can tell that all of you are a success. Why would you all be on this campus if you were not successful, if you were not going on to successful careers on Madison Avenue or Wall Street?

''And yet here I stand, hoping to talk one of you into giving away your life in the toughest job you will ever have. I am looking for;·people to go into the hollows of West Virginia, into the ghettos of South Los Angeles and teach in some of the most difficult schools in the world. Last year, two of our teachers were killed while on the job.

''And I can tell, just by looking at you, that none of you are interested in that. So go on to law school, or whatever successful thing you are planning on doing.

''But if by chance, some of you just happen to be interested, I've got these brochures here for you to tell about Teach America. Meeting's over.''

With that, the whole group stood up, pushed into the aisles, shoved each other aside, ran down to the front, and fought over those brochures.

That evening I learned an important insight: People want something more out of life even happiness. People want to be part of an adventure. People want to be part of a project greater than their lives.

Have you noticed? The primary way of telling the story of Jesus is as a journey. You can see this in all of the gospels, particularly the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, but especially in Mark. Jesus is always on the way to somewhere else. Mark tells the story of Jesus with breathless tempo. Mark says that Jesus did that and then immediately (immediately is one of Mark's favorite words) Jesus went on to somewhere else.

The image you get of Jesus' followers, his disciples, in a Gospel like Mark, is a group of people who are always breathlessly trying to catch up, always just one step behind Jesus as he moves on to somewhere else.

I love the way Mark begins his gospel with the calling of Jesus' disciples. A couple of the disciples were at work one day, bent over their nets, working on them. (Tony Campollo says that the disciples seemed to be the worst fishermen in the world--they are always mending their nets!)

At any rate, while they are working, they see this strange figure up on the road above them, calling to them, ''Come, follow me and I will teach you to catch people!''

And Mark says they stopped everything they were doing, left their father, and went trudging right after Jesus. One would think they might have asked, ''Well, who are you?''

Or one would at least think they would say, ''Fine. But where are you going?''

They asked none of that. They just stumbled after Jesus. And maybe that's exactly the way it happened. In fact, in Mark's Gospel, that is the image you get of discipleship. Discipleship is following Jesus without exactly knowing who he is or precisely where he is going.

I love another episode in Mark, when the disciples are not mending their nets but are in a boat on the sea. A storm blows in, the sea gets ugly, and it appears that the boat is going to be swamped and everyone will drown.

Lo and behold, who should they see out on the sea at that point but Jesus. There is Jesus, Mark says that Jesus was out walking past the disciples! He isn't coming out there to pull them out of the boat, he's just out for a stroll! Walking past them!

Jesus is always on the move.

Then, when you get to the very end of Mark, Mark says that the women came out to the tomb on Easter morning. But by the time they get there; they are greeted by a ''young man in white'' who tells them, ''You're looking for Jesus? Sorry. Just missed him. By this time in the morning, he is already all the way out in Galilee! Go!''

Welcome to life with Jesus. Just about the time we are about to get the point, almost ready to catch up with him on Easter, he is on the way somewhere else!

It is a journey which is an adventure. In fact, one of the things that makes a journey an adventure is when we don't know the destination. We have a word for it, coming from the name of a ship (The Serendip) in a story about a group of adventurers. The word is ''serendipity," making a surprising discovery while on a journey somewhere else. And if you have been journeying with Jesus very long, you know that it is quite typical to keep making surprising discoveries with Jesus, even when you are on the way somewhere else. I think that is the main reason why Mark ends his gospel the way he does. Mark ends his gospel with the women out at the tomb, shocked that Jesus is not there. He is going before them out to Galilee. And that very much sums up the entire experience with Jesus. Just when they get there, he has already moved on to somewhere else.

Helpful later commentators added a number of verses to the ending of Mark, but that is not the earliest copies of this Gospel. The thing just ends, with the women standing there stupefied and amazed and Jesus moved on to somewhere else.

I think this is Mark's way of saying that, because of Easter, this journey is not over, in fact it is never over until God says that it is over. We certainly thought that Good Friday and the cross was the end of the story, that death had had the final word. But no, we get out to the cemetery and find out that Jesus is not there. He has moved on. The journey continues.

So if you are thinking about faithful discipleship, don't think about getting your heads straight on a list of fundamental beliefs. Discipleship is more than a head trip. Don't think about discipleship as memorizing a whole string of Bible verses. Think about discipleship as a journey, a journey with Jesus.

This is the story that each of us is finishing for ourselves. Each of us is busy tagging along behind Jesus, being surprised by Jesus, trying to figure out what he said at the last stop. Being amazed at the places that he leads us on this adventure.

I have a few specific things to say about the nature of the journey, as I have observed it:

I.  The journey with Jesus is not only an adventure, it is a relationship. You are not following a set of laws, not trudging along behind a set of beliefs. You are walking with Jesus. Christianity is not so much a set of intellectual propositions which you must affirm. Rather, it is a relationship with someone else.

And you don't always know what turns that relationship may take. In fact, I think of the analogy of a marriage.

When I marry people as a pastor, I try to do pre-marital counseling. What do we do in pre-marital counseling? Some people think that the purpose of pre-marital counseling is to sit down and to talk to the couple about, ''What they're getting into.''

But how do I know what they are getting into?

Those of you who are married, when you got married, did you know what you were getting into? Of course not. Who can know where life will lead us, how people will change? The main thing is, we commit ourselves to be on a journey with another human being, no matter where that journey leads, even through miserable matters like ''Sickness or health, for better for worse,'' and so forth.

The church has you make these promises precisely because you do not know where the journey will lead. If you did know every step of the way, you wouldn't need the promise to stay with the journey, even through sickness, worse times, poverty, and all the other vicissitudes of life which can come our way along the way. ,

II.  A journey implies movement from here to there. Therefore, in characterizing discipleship as a journey, we are saying that it is a long process. Get ready for growth. Get ready for surprise.

My theory for why the church tends to bolt down pews here is that, when you come in here on Sunday morning at 11:00, you never know where you might be located by noon! We bolt down these pews to give the illusion that things are fixed, stable, complete. No, we are on the move with Jesus. He may accept us, ''Just as I am," as we sometimes sing, but he will not leave us just as we are. We are on the move.

III. As with any journey, there are times when we wonder if the journey is working. We have set backs, long stretches of boredom when the scenery is not that interesting.

If you have ever been on a long trip with a group of people, you know that during the course of the trip you will know those people at their best and at their worst. (A recent grad visited a church in Cleveland. After the service, at the door, the pastor said, ''Duke? That's where Dr. Willimon preaches. I admire him so much!'' The grad thought to herself, ''Yea, I did too until I spent two weeks with him on a bus in China.") People on trips get tired. They become difficult to deal with. Because the church is a journey, this means that you will not always enjoy being on a journey with the other people.

Don't feel guilty. On this journey there will be peaks and there will be valleys. Keep walking.

IV. (I hope you are writing this down. It will be on the exam.) The call to discipleship requires certain disciplines for keeping at it. As we have said, the journey, like any journey, is not always easy. Perhaps your journey with Jesus began with a flash of light and with great enthusiasm. But eventually, over time, enthusiasm wanes. The exciting journey of faith becomes less exciting.

The church that we enjoyed going to during··the first few months, becomes dull and routine. However, it is important to keep at it, it is important to keep walking.

You need some disciplines for the journey. I have found, when I am going on any long trip, it is very important on a journey to be sure to eat right, to get enough sleep, and to structure your life so that you have the energy you need to keep going.

It is the same way with the journey of discipleship. What are some of the disciplines of the journey? I think of the importance of regular Bible study, the value of beginning each day with some meditation. These habits can be ways of keeping you focused, of developing the practices you need to keep going.

I think of Sunday worship as a discipline. Just getting out of bed, getting dressed on Sunday and coming into church--don't knock it. This is an important discipline.

Some modem people say that they feel God is far from them, absent from their lives. But they don't consider how often they have been absent from God. In just coming to Sunday worship, you are putting yourself in the right place to keep on the journey. Perhaps today, sitting in church, your journey is going well. But your journey will not always go well. There will be valleys, times when you wonder if you can make it. At those times, the resources which you gained here during Sunday morning worship can be invaluable, life-giving.

The Book of Acts says that the first name given to Christians was The Way. That's a good name. To be a disciple means to be someone who is following Jesus along the way.