Your response implies yet another silly notion, and that is that the prophetic idiom is not amenable to metaphor. Leaving aside the applicability of the passage cited from Jeremiah, which is questionable, let me suggest that the sword is an instrument that in its use separates; it separates flesh from flesh, body parts from body, and life from death. Is it not plausible that, especially in this particular part of Matthew, what is being said is that I, Jesus, have not come to reconcile and unite or re-unite you, that is, those who believe in me, with the body politic, nor in peace preserve the status quo ante of that body, which is corrupt and has already been judged, but to separate you as a sword separates an arm from the body, as members of the kingdom of which my presence is a foretaste? Jesus is a “terrible, swift sword.”