Family Ties: My Big Fat Greek Wedding Series

Thankfully, Ian remains undaunted: “Work out? What’s to work out?” he protests. “You’ve got a weird family. Who doesn’t?”

A Love that Brings Liberation

The romance between Ian and Toula culminates with a huge wedding. But as with most weddings, the day doesn’t arrive without its associated mishaps and complexities.

On the surface, My Big Fat Greek Wedding describes a comical situation in which Toula escapes from being just her Greek father’s daughter to discover another life and be transformed. But it also shows how you can come to terms with your own heritage and family in the midst of enormous pressure and expectations.

It is the story of how love not only transforms Toula, but also liberates her. It is a contrast between two men and two kinds of love.

Her father judges her by her outward appearance. He tells her that she’s starting to look old, wounding her with words and wanting her to conform to his wishes. Ian, on the other hand, sees her inner beauty, heals her with kind words, and allows himself to be conformed to her. Gus whines, Ian woos. Gus uses her, Ian pursues her. Gus pouts, Ian praises. Gus is proud, focusing on himself and using his family as a tool of emotional blackmail to hold onto her. Ian, meanwhile, praises her, focuses on her, is humble, and accepts her family as well as her. In doing so, he helps to release her.

In her relationship with her father, Toula is trapped in a soul-killing life of duty and obligation, in which she sees herself only as a frump. With Ian, however, she is released into a life of liberation and love; her heart is free and her beauty naturally shines as a result.

A Parable of All Conquering Love

The contrast between these two loves is profound. Whether we will admit it or not, we are all like Toula. We are imprisoned in a world we can’t seem to escape from. The book of Genesis, in chapter 3 (verses 22-24) describes how Adam and Eve were banished from their original home in the Garden of Eden, ‘to work from the ground which they had been taken’.

Adam and Eve, after they had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, realised they were unclothed and so hid their nakedness with fig leaves. We still hide behind fig leaves today – not literally, of course, but metaphorically. Toula hid herself behind the counters at the restaurant and the travel agency. And we hide behind things. On the inside, we might feel like the frumpy girl, and quite often find ourselves sitting out in the alley having lost all hope.

The good news is that someone loved us enough to suffer for us. As Philippians 2: 5-8 tells us, ‘your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form. And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal’s death on a cross. Because of this, God raised him up to the heights of heaven and gave him a name that is above every other name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’