“There once was a man who had a fig tree in his vineyard. He went to see if there was fruit on it, but there wasn’t any. He told his gardener to cut the tree down, explaining that in three years there hadn’t been any fruit on the tree. It was a waste of dirt.

The gardener asked him to give it another year. He promised to dig around it and fertilize it. He said ‘If it doesn’t bear fruit after that then it can be cut down.’”

LK 13:6-9