One of the deepest ironies in the story of faith is that those who most embody inclusion, those who open doors, extend grace, and widen the circle of belonging, are often the very ones cast out.
The includer becomes the excluded.
The healer becomes the outcast.
The prophet who calls for compassion finds no compassion extended to him.
This irony runs through the entire scriptural story and sits at the heart of what it means to live a covenant life in a fallen world.
The Pattern of the Includer’s Exile
From the beginning, those who see and love beyond the boundaries of their community have always been misunderstood.
- Joseph sought reconciliation with his brothers and dreamed of a shared future. His brothers’ response? Exile him.
- Moses left the comfort of Pharaoh’s house to identify with the oppressed Israelites. His first attempt to help was met with rejection: “Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?” (Exodus 2:14).
- Lehi preached repentance out of love for Jerusalem and was driven from it.
- Abinadi stood before a corrupt court offering the words of life, and the people silenced him by fire.
- Christ, the ultimate includer, healed, forgave, and embraced the marginalized and was crucified by the very people whose covenant He came to fulfill.
The pattern is heartbreakingly consistent. The includer destabilizes the comfortable order of exclusion, and for that, the includer must be excluded.
Why Communities Exile Their Includers
Why would a people who profess belonging exile those who most exemplify it?
The answer lies in the tension between tribal belonging and covenantal belonging.
Tribal belonging is built on boundaries, who’s in, who’s out, who looks right, believes right, behaves right. It depends on sameness and control. It thrives on protecting identity through exclusion.
Covenantal belonging, by contrast, is built on grace. It is God’s invitation to a table big enough for all His children, a people bound not by sameness but by shared commitment to Him.
When the covenant is forgotten, tribal instincts take over.
And those instincts feel threatened by includers.
The includer’s presence reveals the community’s narrowness. The includer’s compassion exposes others’ fear.
Rather than be enlarged by the includer’s vision, the community defends itself by exile.
The Exile’s Revelation
Ironically, exile often becomes the place where the includer’s message matures.
The exile learns the cost of belonging. They see, from the outside, how fragile community can be when mutuality dies. And they come to understand what belonging must mean if it is to last.
In exile, Moses found God in the wilderness. Lehi built a covenant community in the desert. Joseph Smith received some of his greatest revelations in Liberty Jail. Jesus in Gethsemane and on Golgotha revealed the ultimate truth of divine inclusion: that He would go outside the camp, bear rejection, and gather all back into the Father’s embrace.
Exile clarifies vision. It reveals that true belonging is not granted by human approval but bestowed by divine grace.
The Includer as the Mirror of the Covenant
The includer exposes whether a community’s religion is real or merely ritual.
If a people claim to live by covenant but exile their includers, they have betrayed the very heart of the covenant. Their worship becomes hollow. Their rituals become mechanisms of control rather than channels of grace.
But if a community listens to the includer. if it welcomes the uncomfortable voice, if it repents of exclusion, then exile turns into renewal. The includer becomes the prophet who rebuilds Zion.
The Paradox of Christ’s Exile
Jesus embodies this irony perfectly.
- He came to include: to call sinners, heal the sick, lift the fallen, and break dividing walls.
- Yet His inclusion provoked the powerful.
- The religious leaders, protectors of purity and order, saw His welcome to the impure as threat, not fulfillment.
- The includer was crucified outside the city walls, the ultimate exile.
And yet from that place of exclusion came the world’s greatest inclusion: “When I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32, NIV).
Christ turns the exile of the includer into the salvation of the excluded.
The Continuing Irony of Excluding the Includer
This irony continues today. Those who seek to make religion a place of grace often find themselves marginalized by those who fear change.
Reformers, bridge-builders, and healers are still treated as threats by the guardians of control.
But the story of the includer’s exile teaches that exile is not the end. It is revelation. It is where God shows the includer that His belonging transcends every human boundary.
The Final Belonging
The includer’s exile anticipates the final belonging. The Kingdom of God will be a community gathered from all nations, tribes, and tongues, a people who have learned that belonging cannot be hoarded or policed.
The irony of the includer’s exile will finally be undone when God Himself dwells with His people in the Redeemed and Holy City and “there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants” (Revelation 22:3).
Until then, the exile remains the truest teacher of belonging, the one who has paid its price and discovered that the God of the covenant is Himself the great Includer.
