Ethics in the Face of the Future: Levinas and Open Theism in "the Little Job" of Luke 13

This paper places developments in Open and Relational Theology (ORT) into constructive dialogue with the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas through a reading of Luke 13—here termed the “Little Job.” Confronted with suffering, Jesus offers no ontological explanation for evil, much like the divine in the book of Job. Instead, Luke 13 redirects attention toward ethical urgency: tears over Jerusalem, the parable of the fig tree, and Sabbath healing all signal an open future charged with responsibility. Drawing on Levinas’ priority of the ethical, asymmetrical responsibility, and the irreducible alterity of the Other, this paper argues that the face of the Other is the stage of possibility, which continually reopens a future seemingly foreclosed by suffering. ORT’s vision of a genuinely open future (LOTUS) provides the cognitive and theological space necessary for liberative action bound by responsibility for the Other and their future.