Walter Bruggeman notices that one of the most important and ancient prayers of the Old Testament is a prayer uttered to no one: After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out. Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God (Exodus 2:23). It is a prayer rooted in a specific, localized, historical context: political power in Egypt, hope for change, the end of a king's life and the beginning of a new reign, as well as the suffering of slavery by a group of people called the Israelites, whose history began centuries prior. The Israelites groan and cry out. They were nowhere if not under the yoke of slavery. There was, seemingly, no escape. Their cry went up to God, even if it was not originally addressed to God. It was a cry for help. As Brueggemann puts it, "Such prayer is the raw articulation of the most desperate bodily need, an out-loud utterance of unbearable suffering and misery that must be voiced (Brueggemann, Greatest Prayers of the Old Testament, p. xiii).
This is not prayer as habit. This is a distinct urge to pray, a prayer that is upon you as easily as breathing, or as raw as cussing, an urgent prayer in time of need. It is the cry for help that no one practices, but comes as quick as lightening. It is a prayer that comes when there is monumental change, when the rhythm of life is disrupted, when there is no way out. It is a prayer of deepest need.
This is also not individual prayer. My grandparents were in a head on collision when I was in high school: they thought my grandmother would never walk again. There were guttural prayers on impact, or while waiting for medical help to arrive, or in the days in the ICU or the months in the hospital. But the ancient prayer of the Israelites in slavery is different from this: it was a groaning together, it was a collective experience of suffering, in which each individual became, to God and one another, a "them," a community, a people whose cries were united in the suffering of slavery, the political powers of empire, the Pharaoh's unjust expectations, and the slavery-inducing desire for more.
Underlying the now-months-long Pandemic-moment of 2020 is this groaning together. Our collective global groan, uttered at times to no one, ascends to the ears of God. If we are to stand alongside the ancient Hebrew holy story of Exodus, then we can affirm that our cry for help is heard by the Holy One. Our cries are one: united at the very least by the context of constant, vexing and unearned suffering.
In this great communal groan that is unarticulated but heard by God nonetheless, Augustine reminds us, "It is your heart's desire that is your prayer." There is at least the desire of the heart, yes, but in this COVID-19 context, it is more the desire of our bodies - the exhaustion and impossibility of living and laboring under the virus' demands - and the desire of our mind - the mental anguish that accompanies a global health crisis.
God, for thousands of years, people have lifted up the names of those they love to your care. For thousands of years, prayers for healing have ascended. For thousands of years, we have sought from you peace: a peace that passes all understanding. For thousands of years, we have come to you when life bends and breaks us, when we groan under the collective weight of suffering.
Be with us now, as the coronavirus spreads and as we attempt to prevent it from spreading. Let strength of love surprise us. Give us as straight a path of life as is possible as we meander together across oceans and borders and languages to make a way forward. Put us under your blanket of protection, O Holy One. Make our way clear.
Let us rest in you peace as the unknown continues to be revealed, as so many tomorrows become a reality. Specifically, be with those who are designing an effective treatment in these early days. Let hope be born treatment after treatment, experiment after experiment, recovery after recovery. Be a healing love, a guiding light, a way, a possibility, a song of hope. Amen.