I think you may be conflating your religion with broader Matari spiritualities.
- The Elders don’t embody the tribes. They represent the leadership of the tribes as they once were, in ancient times, as it’s trickled down to today. Most of us think of them as very specific nature spirits rather than gods.
- Stark isn’t meant to be anyone’s ideal, and neither are the other Elders. In fact, they’re incredibly flawed. As I understand it, the Amarrian God is supposed to be perfect and possess perfect understanding of all things; for the Elders, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Their mysticism mostly comes from the fact that (according to our beliefs) they are the collection of millennia of learning and suffering, which is more than we mere humans have, but still nowhere near perfect.
- Generally we don’t assign any particular responsibilities to the Elders. We don’t expect them to answer us or appear before us when we call, and we don’t expect them to reveal themselves to us. That’s why with their being gone for so long, no one was really surprised (highly distressed, but not really surprised). But we were super surprised and thrilled when they showed up with their Fleet, because as of modern times, they don’t really do stuff like that.
As a note, as well, not every spiritual Matari approaches the Elders in the same way; there are tribal and clan and personal differences. But I think this covers it in broad strokes.